Oprah: So tell me how you got into the drug dealing.
Jay-Z: It was natural.…
Oprah: Because drug dealers were your role models. There wasn’t a teacher or a lawyer or a nurse or a doctor or an accountant in the neighborhood?
Jay-Z: Well, we were living in Marcy by then, so, no. And if anyone did become something like that, they moved out. They never came back to share the wisdom of how they made it. If anyone made it, you never knew it. That’s why I’ve always said that if I became successful, I’d come back here, grab somebody, and show him how it can be done.
Oprah: So by the time you were 13, this was a way of life. Did the lifestyle frighten you?
Jay-Z: No. It was normal. And at some point, you become addicted to the feeling. The uncertainty and adrenaline and danger of that lifestyle.
Oprah: This is where we differ. This is where we differ. Because I’d be very scared! Weren’t you shot at three times—within six feet—and you lived to talk about it?
Jay-Z: That was divine intervention. Divine intervention, and nobody knowing how to shoot.
Oprah: What happened in each situation?
Jay-Z: It was one situation, three shots.
Oprah: So he was a bad shot.
Jay-Z: Well, no one really practices shooting a TEC-9 machine gun, right? And when you’re a kid, with little bony arms—no wonder nobody could aim.
Oprah: Many of the little boys who grew up in the Marcy projects are either in jail or dead. Why do you think you got to grow up and buy your mom a house?
Jay-Z: There’s the gift, there’s the spirit, and there’s the work—all three have to come together. If one of those things is off, it can stop you from becoming who you were meant to be.
Check out a promo for Jay-Z’s 9/11 concert below.
Jay-Z is asking you to “Answer The Call”. Fuse presents Jay-Z live and commercial free from Madison Square Garden on September 11th at 9pm|8c. For more information go to fuse.tv/jay-z
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Greatest of All Time, REAL TALKKKK!!!
yeah right, the only thing jay dealt was shitty records.
lol.. I think it will be a good interview, just wish she would give that platform to some of these other rappers.
Jay Z – “There’s the gift, there’s the spirit, and there’s the work—all three have to come together. If one of those things is off, it can stop you from becoming who you were meant to be.”
Learn something HATERS.
Everybody know that jay neva sold a gram….nigga be frontin like a muthafucka…he wanna be like biggie soooo bad
o and FUCK OPRAH
I THOUGHT IT WAS JAYS MAN THAT DID THE ACTUAL DEALING
jay was a drug dealer? loool.
Jay was small time…ask the old heads still in Marcy and they will tell you….funny because it was something he went at Nas for being and he was a hand to hand soldier too………fuck it tho………..he is super paid now
niggaz ..these days are funny tho , when jay first came into the game …they cosigned em ..and said he really did ..do what he rapped about . but then ..when he wasn’t breakin bread .wid em ..they got mad and discredit em ..sayin ..how he really wasn’t doin anything …niggaz to sensitive now of days.
@9
thats a good call. everybody was talking about his integrity and how it was cool cause he was a nigga who really did some of the stuff he talking about. now ten years later….everybody story flipped. niggaz is so shifty.
I cant vouch for how successful he was but even in trenton. nj the old head talk about how they remember seeing him on the ave. everybody knew what he was up to.
Jay-Z did sell crack….I know a couple of old dominican heads deported that deal with him and his friend de-haven they are in their 40′s now…
Funny I met them in dr..while I listening to a Jay-Z CD…hahahah and they told me that the personally knew him..and I’m like how the fuck do u know him..they were like in the late 80s and early 90s….he was a scronny kid……who wen to them to deal..1/8ths..and quarter bricks..with de-haven….they actually said De-haven’s name I was shocked….lol…that shit was so hilarious…this is like 2005…or so..I’m like this is too coincidental…wtf
Haters are hilarious, who cares the album is fire, will be #1 again, and ill be front row at the concert, fall back lames.
yeah you do got some serious Jay haters up in here. either you a Jay-z fan or stan or not, it’s crystal clear yall some haters. I’m not mentioning which numbers
I beleive J was really out there hustlin no doubt. There just some things he says that you wouldn’t know unless you really been in that postion. Don’t like JAY Z AT ALL but I don’t think dude is lying about is past. Just like 50 and the unit, they be sayin shit sometimes that theres no way someone could write that unless they have actually fired a gun or ect…
yall can see what happens when a wack ass rapper lies about his past…aka fat ass po po rick ross. people wanna hate so hard on a dude who has made it for himself that they will dig in the deepest corners of the earth to discredit a man. You think that Jay-Fuckin-Z hasnt been under the microscope since he dropped his first shit? dont be foolish, he is what he says he is, or we would know by now. not like jay is a new act in the industry, the mother fucker runs it!
This is double standards, Oprah. You give Luda grief, but you let Jay-Z slide because he’s a successful entrepreneur. Both of them talk/talked about women in a derogatory manner. Madness.
LOL @ people believing Jay was really a drug dealer lolol
It doesn’t even matter if Jay was or was not what he said he was the same can go for Ross. I aint know lawyer or police officer but if you were a drug kingpin at some point in your life the feds,task force or IRS would be all over you.The real AL Capone was a real ass gangster in his day and they couldn’t pin anything on him but they got his ass for tax evasion. If these dudes were as real as they say they are don’t you think the IRS would be all over that ass?Jay once said before he got in rap he was in his 100.000 range. Cmon people 100k or more and you don’t think the IRS would notices when you start living above your means. Thats why I don’t care what these dudes say cause its just entertainment at the end of the day.To Jay-Z’s credit homeboy can flow and thats why he’s been in the game aslong as he has been not cause he’s the realest dude out there.
Jay-Z Speaks On His Drug Dealing Past & Almost Being Shot With Oprah
He almost got shot with Oprah…the projects is tough!
LOL at some of you clowns actually thinking he WASN’t a drug dealer…despite the fact that they was taking shots at him, Calvin Klein, Dehaven and others been confirmed that.
Way too many haters its too funny…what is so hard to believe about selling drugs..especially in a project…but I guess no one can believe him because he doesn’t have bullet holes to rhyme about…BP3 still gonna sell and you haters could keep preaching to ya selves…
exactly!@#10 …
if hov saw this post it most likely would hurt his ego c’mon guys lets suc his dick some more
“i put eight balls in corners/without using pool sticks” – Jay-z “thank you”
who you know better than Hov????????
Hov telling Oprah a bunch of “folk stories”……..exaggerating like motherfukker!!!
He borderlined Rick Ross’d her with all those stories LOL LOL
Album is crack and i remember when he first came out and everybody was saying that Jay was already a millionaire b4 rap…now he’s a fraud….cosign #9 &10.
stop hating on J people. Why are people hating and thinking he is lying about his past only now?
my fault, i mean #11
#19 100,000 is not really very much money. Why you think the irs will let you go for years b4 they crack down on you….they’re going after the big fish while your case builds up.
Gay-z should thank the killers of Tupac & Biggie because if they still around Gay-z would be working at a fast food joint. FUCK GAY-Z!!! NOT THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME!!!!!!
yall act like jay aint been talkin bout dis since day one
reasonable doubt is classic…but it sounds like a death letter
talkin bout all dem hard times..hustlin…and he was breakin dat shit down to well to not be involved wit it
b4 the album dropped he was on the island for the “In My Lifetime” video
then dis nigga was in the dead presidents video breakin bread with BIGGIE.
most of the niggas that hate Jay-Z prolly got Biggie in ya top 3 lol
thats backwards…other than his kids, mom and Diddy..BIG shouted out Jay on his last interview..not these otha niggas
so personally..i dont see why its a suprise to ppl.. Jay came strait out with his own label then mapped a deal. u cant start a label without bread. What job in the project gunna help 3 niggas start a label???????????????????????????????????????????????????????
u see what I mean?
it was way harder for the feds to tap in the early 90′s compared to all these rats we got in 09
this nigga neva graduated high school lol
smart man
@20 Noell: HAHAHA! thats the same thing I was thinking when I saw this post “o shyte jay z and oprah got shot at??”lol.
LMFAO AT #33real
lol i never figure jay to be a drug dealer…iono he jux never seemed like a hood nigga to me…he too soft but who cares he made it and got more money than all of us
.. don’t get me wrong Jay-z’s amazing and all, but when Oprah asked him if he ever did drugs, his answer was no! then Oprah just laughed it off saying something along the lines of — yea i hear the good drug dealers don’t do their drugs, and Jay replied “yea, we learned that from scarface” (LOL)! anyway point being y would he “lie” about not doing drugs, which kinda comes with the territory. well if he didn’t all the more props to him!