GQ tapped American artist Rashid Johnson to photograph Jay-Z for its new special global issue, which was released on March 24th. The photoshoot accompanies a major interview with the musician and art collector, tied to the 30th anniversary of his debut album, Reasonable Doubt.
Johnson is known for exploring Black American life through an extensive body of work that ranges from photography and painting to large-scale installation. For this photoshoot, which captures Jay-Z in contemplative poses, Johnson pulled from the observational photographs of Harlem Renaissance artist James Van Der Zee and the surrealist tendencies of Francis Bacon, according to his interview with GQ. In one image, Jay-Z partially covers his face with a mask as he stares into the camera.
Jay-Z, an avid art collector and champion of Black artists, has collected Johnson’s work for a decade. Johnson similarly hopes to champion Jay-Z’s legacy through these new photographs.
“Jay’s music, lyricism, and sophistication are very much in line with a lot of interesting and historically important Black thinkers,” Johnson told GQ. “He unpacked the density, the complexity, and the rigors of aspects of the Black experience, from issues of developing credit and finding credibility.”
Over the last two decades, Jay-Z has become one of the most active high-profile celebrities in the art world. His collection includes works by artists such as Damien Hirst, as reported by the BBC, and Laurie Simmons, as reported by CBS News. The rapper filmed a music video for Picasso Baby at New York’s Pace Gallery and commissioned Derrick Adams to transform a painting of his into an NFT. Sotheby’s revealed that Jay-Z owns Adams’s Style Variation (2020), as reported by ArtNews.
Johnson has made headlines several times in recent years. In 2025, Johnson was the subject of a massive retrospective at the Guggenheim in New York, which featured almost 90 works. He has had recent solo exhibitions at Hauser & Wirth Paris in 2024 and Stockholm’s Moderna Museet in 2023.
