Jay-Z has given a rare interview as he prepares to return to the stage this summer. The wide-ranging sit-down with GQ broached various issues relating to his career, back catalog, and business empire, as well as rap beefs and hip-hop culture at large. Watch excerpted footage below. After praising Kendrick Lamar’s performance at the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show, Jay went long on the beef between Drake and Lamar, positioning it in the context of the “four pillars of hip-hop”: breakdancing, graffiti, DJing, and battling. Other than battling, each of these has drifted from the center of hip-hop, he told interviewer Frazier Tharpe. “Breakdance,” he said, is “actually an Olympic sport. So that’s dead [laughs]. Graffiti, beautiful in certain places. It’s not part of hip-hop. The DJ was in the forefront. It was Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. Eric B. and Rakim. You don’t even know the DJ for half of the artists anymore. And the last pillar is battling.…