Jaz-O Exposes Jay-Z's Early Drug Dealing Days

"He was like, 'I shot my brother,' " recalls Johnathan "Jaz-O" Burks in a new biography, "Empire State of Mind: How Jay-Z Went From Street Corner to Corner Office." "I was like, 'What the f--k did you shoot him for?' He's like, 'I told him to stop taking my stuff.' He said it was kind of an accident . . . but the situation got kind of crazy, and he just happened to hit him in the arm.'" He's done so well, many have forgotten he started as a street hustler from the grim Marcy Houses in Bedford-Stuyvesant who sold crack by the kilo, was nearly murdered by a rival and narrowly escaped jail after cops pulled him over when his car was loaded with cocaine. He later plunged a knife into the belly of a man he thought was stealing music profits from him. And yet, he never went to jail. The biography by journalist Zack O'Malley Greenburg, out this month, provides a colorful reminder of the rapper's dark roots. (New York Post)

In 2009, Jaz recruited a former friend of Jay's named Gunna to discredit the rap mogul's image.

"Bubble lip Shawn," he says in the video. "He went from Buble lip Shawn to Jigga to Jay-Z, d*mn you on Jaz d*ck...He was a worker, he wasn't the dude...All the stuff you hearing on records, it's not true...For all y'all that don't know, homie wasn't that big time, drug dealer, gangsta motherf*cker that he talk about on them records. Dude was getting smacked up, robbed out in the hood, he was getting robbed. One time, I was locked up, some comrades stripped him up. I got the news and told homie he had to give him his sh*t back...We the truth, just ask the streets." (Hip Hop Beef)