Jim Jones says JAY-Z was just like the rest of the rising New York rappers back in the day struggling to reach platinum.
JAY-Z seems so synonymous with greatness these days, it’s easy to forget that he wasn’t always at the top of the rap game. Appearing on REVOLT’s Drink Champs recently, Jim Jones recalled that he was once racing alongside Hov for their first platinum plaque. Speaking to host and rapper N.O.R.E, Jim remembered how different making hip-hop once was for artists, saying, “It was a different era when artists weren’t going platinum, some of the biggest artists people look up to now, in that moment, in the nineties, wasn’t going platinum. They might have been hot or fly, but they wasn’t going platinum.”
Jim Jones went on to point out the exceptions to that rule, saying, “Mase was going platinum, N.O.R.E. was going platinum. Cam was going platinum. DMX was going platinum.”
While some artists were able to achieve widespread success with rap records at the time, Jones goes on to explain that this was not immediately the case for JAY-Z. “It took him a while to go platinum,” he said. “Like, he didn’t start off going platinum.” Given that Jim Jones and Jay-Z are former labelmates, it makes sense that Jones was tracking the progress of Jay’s career as they both attempted to secure top spots.
Jim Jones went on to make it clear that he isn’t trying to diss JAY-Z or deny his skill, saying, “And that’s no shots at Hov, he’s a f**king billionaire. But his main battle was making it to platinum. He had the platinum Rollie, they had everything, but it was hard for him to make platinum.”
As we all know, Hov eventually did hit platinum, and the rest is history. Jim Jones concluded by mentioning the legendary status of Jay now, saying, “And then, when he finally made platinum, he stayed there, he only got better and iller, and way triller, you dig?”
