At the time, he shared on NPR, he was in complete survival mode. I guess in the beginning I really took it for granted, it came so easy.'ġ4. He used to rap about anything, You know, 'My clothes is damp / And I like that lamp / And I am the champ,' and I was like, that's f-king cool. And there was this guy who used to freestyle around the way. 'I guess like all kids that got into hip-hop. He was 9 when he 'started messing with my parents' record player,' he told British GQ in 2005. 'My mom and pop had an extensive record collection,' he shared of his earliest inspirations, 'so Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder and all of those sounds and souls of Motown filled the house.' 4. The day before, you could be celebrating him getting a brand-new bike.' 3. One day, your best friend could be killed. 'There was playing in the Johnny-pump (an opened fire hydrant) and the ice-cream man coming around and all of these games that we'd play, and suddenly it would turn just violent and there would be shootings at 12 in the afternoon on any given day. 'It was a very intense and stressful situation,' he recalled during a 2010 interview on NPR's Fresh Air. Born in New York City's Brooklyn, Shawn Corey Carter grew up in the notorious Marcy housing projects in the borough's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. And he came thisclose to becoming Sir Jay Z when Paul McCartney knighted him Sir Hova of Brooklyn (an honor Queen Elizabeth II can officially only bestow on British citizens.)Īnd then there's rapper, the one that started it all with the release of his debut, Reasonable Doubt more than 20 years ago. An album that required him to create his own label Roc-A-Fella Records to get it on the shelves, it charted on the Billboard 200, was certified multi-platinum, a milestone that's pretty much standard for the 12 solo studio albums he's produced since, and was eventually named as one of Rolling Stone's '500 Greatest Albums of All Time.'ġ. Beyoncé Knowles, the power couple's marriage now in its 13th year. Not to mention father to 9-year-old Blue Ivy and 4-year-old twins Rumi and Sir-and, of course, Mr. There is Grammy winner (23 times over), president of Def Jam Recordings, founder of Roc Nation and billionaire, thanks to his stakes in companies like Armand de Brignac champagne, Tidal and Uber, his real estate and, of course, the publishing rights to his 13 no. And, no, we're not just talking about his given name, Shawn Carter. Across his five decades on this earth, Jay-Z has adopted many descriptors.

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