Staff Writer
Vanity Fair sat down with the rap superstar, Jay Z, for an interview recently where he was asked about his hectic lifestyle. The interview took a turn when he wound up revisiting his past…
“I know about budgets,” Jay began when asked about how he became good at business. “I was a drug dealer.”
“To be in a drug deal, you need to know what you can spend, what you need to re-up, or if you want to start some sort of barbershop or car wash – those were the businesses back then. Things you can get in easily to get out of [that] life.”
“At some point, you have to have an exit strategy, because your window is very small; you’re going to get locked up or you’re going to die.”
Jay Z spoke about how his mother was aware he was dealing drugs but he “never really had those conversations” with her. “We just pretty much ignored it. But she knew. All the mothers knew. It sounds like, ‘How could you let your son…’ but I’m telling you, it was normal.”
It wasn’t until Jay grew older that he began to see the negative effects of his dealing on the local community. “I started looking at the community on the whole, but in the beginning, no. I was thinking about surviving. I was thinking about improving my situation. I was thinking about buying clothes.”
Now a 43-year-old father of one, Jay Z explained that crack cocaine was “everywhere” and “inescapable” when he was a youngster and that he was lucky he never became an addict himself.
“There wasn’t any place you could go for isolation or a break,” he noted. “You go in the hallway: crackheads in the hallway. You look out in the puddles on the curbs: crack vials are littered in the side of the curbs. You could smell it in the hallways, that putrid smell; I can’t explain it, but it’s still in my mind when I think about it.”
It’s a far cry from the glitzy, privileged lifestyle his 18 month old daughter will be able to enjoy as the child of Beyonce and Jay Z, “We’ve got a really charmed life, so how could we complain?”
Though the tot has yet to hear her dad’s full repertoire of songs, she’s still his biggest fan. “I don’t know if Blue ever heard any of my music prior to this album — she’s only 18 months old and I don’t play my music around the house.”
“But this album was new, so we played it. And she loves all the songs. She plays a song and she goes, ‘More, Daddy, more … Daddy song.’ She’s my biggest fan. If no one bought the “Magna Carta” (album), the fact that she loves it so much, it gives me the greatest joy.”
To read the full interview with Vanity Fair click here.
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