JAY-Z is opening up about his final conversation with Kobe Bryant.
During a Q&A session at Columbia University on Tuesday (Feb. 4), JAY spoke about the conversation he had with Bryant at his home on New Year’s Eve.
“So, Kobe was a guy that looked up to me, and we’ve hung out multiple times. He was last at my house on New Year’s, and he was just in the greatest space that I had [ever] seen him in,” Jay said. “One of the last things he said to me was, ‘You gotta see Gianna play basketball.’ … He was just so proud of what he said. So, that’s really a tough one, and my wife and I are taking that really tough. That’s all I’ll say on that. [Bryant was] just a great human being, was in a great space in his life.”
Beyoncé sent her thoughts and condolences to the Bryant family in a series of posts on Instagram.
In the first post, she posted a throwback photo of Bryant when he was a young boy. In the second post, she posted a photo of Bryant’s 13-year-old daughter Gianna, who died alongside her father in the helicopter crash. In the third photo, Beyoncé posted a photo of Bryant and Gianna together at a basketball game. She captioned that photo, “I will continue to diligently pray for your Queens. You are deeply missed beloved Kobe.”
JAY recently paid homage to Bryant by wearing his No. 24 Lakers jersey at a Super Bowl party in Miami.
Bryant was a huge fan of JAY’s and would listen to his music before games.
“Whenever a new JAY-Z album came out, it was a big deal,” Bryant’s former teammate, Brian Shaw, told The Players’ Tribune in 2016. “Guys would get it day one and be rapping their favorite songs. Maybe they knew the first few bars or the hook. Well, Kobe would be in the back of the bus rapping every single line of every single song the day after the album came out. I’m talking every lyric. It was genuinely amazing. Nobody could figure out how it was possible.”
Take a look at the video below.