Jay-Z Says Watching Blue Ivy Carter Perform With Beyoncé Made Him “Super Proud”

Jay-Z is a very proud father. In a new interview with Gayle King for CBS Mornings, the rapper opened up about everything from his family life to his wife Beyoncé’s seminal Renaissance World Tour.

However, what has social media shedding a tear is when he hyped up his 11-year-old daughter Blue Ivy Carter, opening up about how he felt seeing her perform with her mother all summer long.

During the worldwide trek, Blue Ivy regularly joined Beyoncé onstage as she performed her The Gift track “MY POWER,” doing the choreography faithfully. As Bey headed backstage for a quick costume change, Blue blended in with the dancers and kept the crowd entertained, pulling off their moves with growing precision at every show.

Why Jay-Z Is Proud Of Blue Ivy

In the viral clip, Jay-Z commented on the public scrutiny that Blue Ivy has faced as a mere child, simply due to the fact that she is Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s daughter, saying he’s “super proud” that she’s been able to work through that.

“Blue’s been born into a life she didn’t ask [for],” he explained. “Since she was born, she’s been in scrutiny and the public eye, everyone having an opinion, even for a little girl, on how she keeps her hair.”

He said watching his daughter perform onstage “gave me goosebumps.” “For her to be on that stage and reclaim her power, and the song is called ‘MY POWER,’ you can’t write a better script,” he said, adding how satisfying it was to watch her stage presence grow.

Jay-Z went on to recall how nervous Blue was to step onto the stage at first, even if she didn’t show it. “She came out to 80,000 people, she’s 11 so she’s nervous,” he said. ‘I know her, so I know how nervous she was, and I know how frightened she was, and she wanted to do it.”

In fact, she wanted to come out on opening night, but he and Bey made her go through rehearsals like everyone else, meaning she didn’t make her debut until a few shows later. “We were like, ‘Ok, if that’s something you want to do, you can’t just go out there, you gotta go work with the dancers,’” he said. “And she worked every day, watched ‘em work hard.” As a result, Blue was credited as a dancer in the tour credits on Beyoncé’s website.

Of course, he also had some words of praise for Bey, who even put the show together. “First of all, my wife, I know how hard she works,” he remarked. “For me, it’s her best tour.”

The Origin Of Blue Ivy’s Name

During the interview, Jay-Z also told the story of how Blue Ivy’s name came to be, dismissing rumors that it was because blue is his favorite color. “I wish it was that simple,” he quipped. “It’s a story, I’ll tell you that story.”

It turns out that Bey and Jay originally planned to name their first child Brooklyn, after the rapper’s famed hometown. “That was the name we had in theory,” he said. “But when we got the sonograms, they’re super small, and we were calling her blueberry. Like, ‘Aww, look at the little blueberry.’ It was like a nickname for nine months... So it was natural, we often just called her Blue.”