Jay-Z Addresses Why It’s “Hard” For Him To Watch His Old Music Videos: “I Was So Guarded”

Jay-Z explains why he has a difficult time revisiting his earlier music videos.

Hov recently engaged in a conversation with Complex alongside other notable figures such as Missy Elliott and DJ Khaled, sharing their experiences of collaborating with the renowned director Hype Williams. Reflecting on his earlier collaborations with Hype, the Brooklyn native expressed that he sees a distinctly altered version of himself when he looks into the past, and it’s not something he particularly embraces.

“Hype definitely has a vision for what he wants to see,” Hov said. “So he’d be like, ‘Yo, blow the smoke right here and this is gonna be crazy, it’s going to be bananas!’ But I don’t know if I was coachable as far as a performance at that time. I don’t know if anyone could coach me, you know, because I was so guarded. I think about the early videos that I have and I listen to myself talking and it’s kind of hard for me to watch.”

He added, “That’s not even how I speak. So I don’t know if he could coach my performance. But he definitely coached the scene and everything around it. And other people may have a different experience. I’m sure he coached Missy more or coached Busta more and you could get more out of them. I don’t know if he could get more out of us at that time. And then it was like 30 of us and all we wanted to do is laugh.”

In another part of the interview, Hov expanded on his past reserved demeanor during that period of his career. He emphasized that his guarded nature was the primary obstacle preventing him from transitioning from a rapper to an actor.

“Because of how guarded I was, I hate acting,” he said. “This is why I don’t act, because I would get in my way. I would be thinking, ‘No, I don’t wanna do something that I ain’t gonna look cool.’ But, I was young and immature. Or I was young mentally. You know, if you see our own movies, I was in for like 30 seconds and I wasn’t even speaking.”