JAY-Z’s Mum Gloria Carter on why she came out as Gay on song “Smile”
In the song which features on JAY-Z’s album “4:44” JAY-Z raps:
Mama had four kids, but she’s a lesbian/ Had to pretend so long that she’s a thespian/ Had to hide in the closet, so she medicate/ Society shame and the pain was too much to take
In an interview on the D’ussé Friday podcast, Gloria Carter said:
Me and my son share a lot of information, so I was sitting there and I was telling him one day, I just finally started telling him who I was.
Besides your mother, this is the person that I am, this is the life that I live.
So my son actually started tearing, because he was like, ‘That had to be a horrible life, Ma.’ And I was like, ‘My life was never horrible, it was just different.’ So that made him want to do a song about it.
Just like JAY-Z said in his interview with Rap Radar, Gloria said she was wary of having her story on a song.
Eventually, she came to while in a plane on her way to his place, and wrote the poem “Living in the Shadows” that was recited at the end of the song on the album. She said:
When I got there I was like, ‘I’m gonna help you along.
I said, ‘Look at this,’ and he was like, ‘Wow, you wrote this on the plane?’ So I said, ‘Yeah,’ and he said, ‘Start reading it.’
So I started reading it and he was taping me – I taped it on the phone!
Gloria Carter said she’s never been ashamed of who she is. She said she had to stay in the closet for so long as a result of society’s prejudices, but it’s finally time to live and be free. She said:
I was never ashamed of me, but my family, it was something that was never discussed.
Because everybody knows who I am, I don’t hide who I am.
I’m tired of all the mystery. I’m gonna give it to ’em. I don’t have to worry about anybody wondering whether I’m in the life or not – I’m gonna tell them.
Now it’s time for me to be live my life and be happy, be free.
Listen to the full podcast below:
https://soundcloud.com/dussefriday/the-gloria-carter-episode
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