Jay Z in Vanity Fair: 'I know about budgets. I was a drug dealer'

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Jay Z will be the cover man for the upcoming November issue for Vanity Fair.

Mr. Carter previously appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair alongside other celebrities for a special Africa issue in 2007, but this will be the first time the Brooklyn emcee has rocked the legendary publication solo.

The topics of fatherhood and living with Beyoncé are touched on in a candid interview with the magazine, but one excerpt that will be sure to make headlines is Jay’s claim that his past as a drug dealer will influence how he runs his sports agency, Roc Nation Sports.

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“I know about budgets. 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,” he said. “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.”

Jay Z has never made an an effort to hide his criminal history. It’s served as an inspiration for a good portion of his musical output. He has argued that dealing drugs was a means to an end in order to get out of the tough Bed-Stuyvesant neighborhood projects he grew up on.

“[I didn’t feel guilty] until later, when I realized the effects on the 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,” said Jay Z to Vanity Fair.

The “Pound Cake” rapper is also still singing President Obama’s praises. In the same interview he said his election “renewed” his “spirit in America.”

“It was like, Oh, wow, man, this whole thing about land of the free, home of the . . . it’s, like, real—it’s going to happen, everyone’s getting to participate in it,” Jay said. “But growing up, if you had ever told a black person from the hood you can be president, they’d be like, I could never . . . If you had told me that as a kid, I’d be like, Are you out of your mind? How?”

Head over to Vanity Fair for the complete interview or you can wait until the magazine hits newsstands October 8^th.

You can check out Kyle’s musical and tech coverage on theGrio’s music page, and follow Kyle on Twitter@HarveyWins