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Jay Z Suits Up for Vanity Fair Cover

The rapper talks about his family and growing up dealing drugs.

(Photo: Vanity Fair Magazine, November 2013)

Jay Z has pulled out all the fancy stops for his Vanity Fair cover. The rapper graces the November issue in a white tux and black bow tie all styled by the skillful June Ambrose who revealed the big news over Instagram on Monday. Inside the issue, Jay chats about his love for Beyoncé, dealing with the rumor that she wasn't truly pregnant with their first child, and how he tried to dazzle her in the beginning of their relationship.
When asked if she'd go for him if he weren't as successful as he is now, he replied, "If I'm as cool as I am, yes. But she's a charming Southern girl, you know, she's not impressed…But I would have definitely had to be this cool."
Jay-Z also discussed the rough parts of his childhood like struggling to pay the bills, dealing drugs when he was a teenager, being surrounded by crackheads in his neighborhood, and his mentality about contributing to the epidemic. The normality of his situation at the time prevented him from feeling guilty about what he'd been doing saying, "Not until later, when I realized the effects on the community. I started looking at the community on the whole, but in the beginning, no. I was thinking about surviving. I was thinking about improving my situation. I was thinking about buying clothes."
He talked about how his daughter Blue Ivy is his biggest fan and corrects anyone who thinks she prefers Beyoncé's music to his.
"That's not true. She does like her mother's music—she watches [Beyoncé's concerts] on the computer every night. But my album came out and I don't know if Blue ever heard any of my music prior to this album—she's only 18 months old and I don't play my music around the house. But this album was new, so we played it. And she loves all the songs. She plays a song and she goes, 'More, Daddy, more . . . Daddy song.' She's my biggest fan," he said. "If no one bought the Magna Carta [album], the fact that she loves it so much, it gives me the greatest joy. And that's not like a cliché. I'm really serious. Just to see her—'Daddy song, more, Daddy.' She's genuine, she's honest, because she doesn't know it makes me happy. She just wants to hear it."
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