Jay-Z: 'I was angry with my father'

Jay-Z has admitted that he was angry with his father for years because he walked out when the rapper was 11.

Speaking to Oprah Winfrey, he explained that he did not reconcile with his dad until shortly before his death in 2003.

"I just felt anger at the whole situation," he said. "Because when you're growing up, your dad is your superhero. Once you've let yourself fall that in love with someone, once you put him on such a high pedestal and he lets you down, you never want to experience that pain again."

Jay-Z explained that his mother Gloria had insisted on setting up a meeting between her son and his father.

"I remember very distinctly that I had a conversation with her in the kitchen," he said. "I was saying, 'You know, Ma, I've really been trying to look inward, and maybe I'm just not meant to fall in love like other people do'.

"She just looked at me like, 'Hush up, boy'. And I guess from that point, she figured out what was wrong with me and she planned a meeting between me and my father."

"I gave him the real conversation," Jay-Z revealed. "I told him how I felt the day he left. He was like, 'Man, you knew where I was'. I'm like, 'I was a kid! Do you realise how wrong you were? It was your responsibility to see me'. He finally accepted that."

The rapper also explained that he now understands why his dad left, saying: "When I was nine, my dad's brother got stabbed, and my dad went looking for the guy who did it. People would call in the middle of the night and tell him, 'So-and-so is out here'.

"After a while, my mum was like, 'Hey, this is your family now. You can't do that'. But this was my dad's baby brother. And my dad was in so much pain that he started using drugs and became a different person.

"So I understand that the trauma of the event, coupled with the drugs, caused him to lose his soul. When we met up, he was broken. He had a bad liver, and he knew that if he continued drinking, it would kill him. But he didn't stop."

Jay-Z's father died a few months after their reconciliation.