Jay-Z will be honored at this year’s GLAAD Media Awards for his song “Smile” off his critically-acclaimed 4:44 album.
The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation announced it would specially recognize Jay-Z for the song that reveals his mother Gloria Carter’s coming-out story. It includes an original poem written by Carter herself.
“Mama had four kids but she’s a lesbian/Had to pretend so long that she’s a thespian,” Jay-Z raps on the song. “I cried tears of joy when you fell in love/Doesn’t matter to me if it’s a him or her.”
The song was the first time the mogul revealed to the world that his mother was a lesbian. Carter explained the experience of coming out to her son in a D’USSE Friday interview last year.
“Besides your mother, this is the person that I am, you know?” she said of the revealing conversation she had with her son. “This is the life that I lived. So, my son started actually, like, tearing because he was like, ‘That had to be a horrible life, ma.’ I was like, ‘My life was never horrible. It was just different.’ So that made him want to do a song about it.”
The 29th Annual GLAAD Media Awards will take place on April 12 in Beverly Hills and May 5 in New York City.