Will Welch on What He Learned from Jay-Z

Sometime in the late aughts, Jay-Z said something to me that changed my life. The details of the night are a little fuzzy, but we were at a small impromptu party in a New York restaurant that was mostly stocked with Jay’s inner circle and, well, me. Jay joined after finishing dinner with David Paterson, the then governor of New York. Around that time he’d launched Roc Nation, and I believe he was in the early stages of bringing the New Jersey Nets to Brooklyn. I wasn’t accustomed to partying with people who had just dined with the governor, and I remember asking Hov how he moves seamlessly through so many different worlds: the rap world, the sports world, several different overlapping corporate worlds, NYC nightlife, even…dinner with the governor?

Jay just kinda shrugged and said, “I walk into every room as myself.”

Damn.

I took those words and put them in my pocket. And I have kept them there ever since.

This is my final issue as the editor in chief of GQ. By the time you read this, I will have started a new job in Paris.

When I got to GQ almost 19 years ago, I walked into every room a little clueless and very eager to please. If it was after dark, I was probably drunk. I was 26 years old and constantly trying to morph into whoever everyone else wanted me to be. We didn’t use the phrase code-switching back then, but that was how I moved between the worlds I navigated: the media industry, the downtown art world, the big-money music business.

But over nearly two decades at GQ, I grew up. My role expanded from cool young guy editing magazine pages to the leader of a global brand with some 20 editions around the world. In order to mature that much as a professional, I had to mature as a person too.

And while I might never light up rooms with the megawatt super-presence of Jay-Z, I can say that, now—all these years later—I do indeed walk into every room as myself.

To me that means: With a mix of confidence and humility. Clear values and strong boundaries. A flexible, sober mind and a steady heart. An intense work ethic that is balanced by an active spiritual practice.

Honestly, it feels like one of my most profound accomplishments—the kind of thing that takes years of hard personal work to realize, and that all the other good things in my life now flow from.

Which is why, when Jay-Z agreed to be on the cover of my last issue, it felt like the perfect kicker to a huge and defining era of my life.

It also meant that the pressure was on, because the execution had to feel epic and eternal.

My first call was to the artist Rashid Johnson. I asked if he’d like to photograph Jay-Z.

Though Rashid is now primarily known as a New York–based painter and multimedia installation artist, I’ve always admired his early photo work in his hometown of Chicago. (To see what I mean, look up the series New Negro Escapist Social and Athletic Club, from 2008.)

From the first Zoom call with Rashid, his conceptual approach to the project was dialed: He said he wanted to explore Jay’s interiority.

It was a counterintuitive instinct.

Jay-Z is exceedingly famous for what you might call his exteriority.

He is not just an entertainer, but also perhaps the most vividly florid braggart of all time, in any genre. Flossing as fine art.