Beyoncé has said she is descended from a slaveowner, in a new interview with Vogue in which she also speaks candidly about race, body image, her children and her creativity.

“I researched my ancestry recently and learned that I come from a slaveowner who fell in love with and married a slave,” she said. “I had to process that revelation over time. I questioned what it meant and tried to put it into perspective. I now believe it’s why God blessed me with my twins. Male and female energy was able to coexist and grow in my blood for the first time. I pray that I am able to break the generational curses in my family and that my children will have less complicated lives.”

The 36-year-old said that her family has a “lineage of broken male-female relationships, abuse of power, and mistrust. Only when I saw that clearly was I able to resolve those conflicts in my own relationship” – an allusion to the marital discord between her and husband Jay-Z, who it is rumoured was unfaithful. She described him as “a soldier and such a strong support system for me” in the wake of giving birth to their twins, Rumi and Sir.

She revealed that they were born via an emergency caesarian section, and that unlike after the birth of her first child Blue Ivy, she resisted pressure to follow “the things society said about how my body should look” and “embraced being curvier”.

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“I have a little mommy pouch, and I’m in no rush to get rid of it,” she said in the interview. “I think it’s real. Whenever I’m ready to get a six-pack, I will go into beast zone and work my ass off until I have it.”

The accompanying images are by 23-year-old photographer Tyler Mitchell, who becomes the first African American to shoot a Vogue cover. "There are so many cultural and societal barriers to entry that I like to do what I can to level the playing field, to present a different point of view for people who may feel like their voices don't matter," the singer said.

The influential singer, who last year topped the Forbes 2017 list of highest-paid women in the music industry with an estimated $105 million (€90 million), said she had decided to do the Vogue photo shoot without wigs or hair extensions, and with as little makeup as possible. "I think it's important for women and men to see and appreciate the beauty in their natural bodies. . .To this day, my arms, shoulders, breasts, and thighs are fuller," she told Vogue. Beyoncé made her stage comeback after the birth of the twins at the Coachella music festival in April. She is currently on a US and European tour with rapper husband Jay-Z.

She described her Coachella performance, which featured much African American symbolism, as “a celebration of all the people who sacrificed more than we could ever imagine, who moved the world forward so that it could welcome a woman of colour to headline such a festival”.

She added that a favourite moment on her recent tour with her husband came in Berlin: "One of the most memorable moments for me on the On the Run II tour was the Berlin show at Olympiastadion, the site of the 1936 Olympics. This is a site that was used to promote the rhetoric of hate, racism, and divisiveness, and it is the place where Jesse Owens won four gold medals, destroying the myth of white supremacy.

“Less than 90 years later, two black people performed there to a packed, sold-out stadium. When Jay and I sang our final song, we saw everyone smiling, holding hands, kissing, and full of love. To see such human growth and connection – I live for those moments.”

Also in collaboration with her husband, Beyoncé recently released the album Everything Is Love, as the Carters, following her six solo albums, and five with girl group Destiny's Child.–The Guardian and Reuters