Jay-Z sits down for an in-depth interview with The Breakfast Club, discussing sports, being proud of Kanye West, his Samsung app, and much more.
Jay-Z blessed Power 105’s The Breakfast Club with a morning visit, and the almost-hour-long interview touched on just about everything– from life back in the day, to his current endeavors like sports management, and of course,Magna Carta Holy Grail. Hopefully you haven’t had your fill of Jay-Z just yet, because this was a good interview. Read through excerpts from the interview below, and watch it in full.
On ranking MCHG 4th:
“Only fourth place…but fighting for that three you gotta fight Reasonable Doubt, The Blueprint, and The Black Album, that’s just hard. Reasonable Doubt, that’s the first album I made, because that’s the joint that took my whole life to make it, then The Blueprint and The Black Album. Sometimes I switch The Blueprint and The Black Album, but don’t tell nobody.”
“It’s very difficult to recreate those times, you can’t bring those times back. But just for it to be so high says what I think about it, but it’s new anyway I might not think that way in two weeks.”
On artist he’s proudest of on his label:
“Kanye West. The most successful at this stage in his career. And his growth and the progress that he’s made is unbelievable. When he first came in he wasn’t at the artist that he is today, but he always aspired to be, from the moment he walked through the door when he was a producer. When he was the producer, he was saying stuff like ‘I am the savior of Chicago,’ and I was like ‘what are you even talking about, you don’t even have a single.'”
On past Nas beef and if it’s awkward today:
“It was a moment in time, a great moment for hip-hop. For us, we really have a good relationship, we laugh. That thing is so far passed…even today, I guess it’s eleven years old maybe longer and people still fascinated with it, but it’s so far removed so far in the background that nah, we’re not awkward around eachother at all.”
“Rap is competitive. Each time I went out I put my career on the line as well.”
On Samsung app difficulties with MCHG:
“Any time that you try to do somethng different, there’s gunna be problems. ‘Cause it’s never been done before, so you can’t anticipate all the things that’s gunna happen. The thing that happened with Samsung is a real thing, it was 20 million hits to the app, I’m not saying 20 million people hit the app, but we went over a million, say a million three. But a [million] people were tyring, and you couldn’t get through, so you hit it twenty times. Thats twenty million hits to the app, and it broke. It’s not even a number that you could fathom, it’s twenty times the amount that we thought was gunna happen, so you can’t even prepare service for that, it’s very difficult.”
“You want the fan to get that experience. The people that waited and downloaded, you want them to have that experience right away, it was like a little disheartening to me, ’cause imagine that.”
On Dame Dash:
“Dame’s a hustla. Dame’ll figure it out…Nothing can erase that era and those times and those memories and those fights that we had to get Roc-A-Fella where it was. It just is what it is. Nothing’s gunna change that. There’ll be some minor things in the middle that get in the way, but those things go away and the relationship remains and those memories remain. We did something great, we built something that’s gunna be here forever, that’s gunna be talked about forever. So there will always be love there.”
On artists he thinks will be here in ten years:
“J. Cole, Drake, Kendrick as well, just on sheer will and wanting it Wale is gunna be here as well.”
On almost signing Lil Wayne:
“Truth is, and this is the first time I ever told this truth, the truth is after I had a meeting with Wayne… you know, I had a relationship with Baby, so I used to go to New Orleans I would hang out with him. So I felt it was only right to call him, so I called him outta respect, like, ‘yo I was talking to Wayne, just letting you know, boom boom boom,’ so after that I think we received a letter at our office for ‘tortuous interference,’ and after that I was like, ‘woaaah,’ and it just all went from there. I think I would rather lose that situation and do the right thing than the opposite, ’cause I think I coulda signed him and told him after but I did the right thing and I’m cool with that decision.”
On working with Timbaland again:
“Me and Timb have always been great, but we’ve never been able to do more than one record together. We’ve been together since the year started basically. But we’ve only been able to create in small time frames, like we did “Big Pimpin'” and that was it. It was just like a personality thing, it wasn’t really clickin’. But we always had genuine love for eachother, but it just wasn’t right. Finally, when he came back this time, he was actually more mature, he was actually like a different person. His conversation and everything I was like, ‘oh, Timb’s ready.'”
On lack of Just Blaze on MCHG:
“The thing with Just Blaze and I is that we really have records that people really care about, so when we try and make music we tryna beat that, so it’s not like a blank sheet when he walks in the room. These are records that are actually the foundation to my career, so we in there tryna beat those, and that’s hard for us to do, that takes time. I’m not in one place and he’s certainly not focused as well…we both need to focus if we gunna do something that’s gunna stand up to those records.”
