All it takes is one friend to encourage you to step into your greatness — even when others don’t fully see the vision.
For Jeezy, that friend happened to be fellow emcee Tip “T.I.” Harris.
During an interview, Jeezy explained just how the rapper pulled him to the side one day in Atlanta, GA, and told him to focus his attention on his budding rap career instead of the streets.
Divine Timing
In fact, the advice came at the perfect time because shortly after their conversation, Jeezy had to witness some of his friends and associates have to battle in court over a federal drug indictment.
“I remember shortly after that, I was having a lot of nightmares about, you know, trying to make it and this one last thing, and then I got caught up,” he said on an episode of Drink Champs. “I was losing a lot of weight because at the time ‘Thug Motivation’ was coming out, everybody I was hanging out with started getting indicted and going to prison.”
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Taking A Risk
Furthermore, the “Put On” rapper made the decision to leave the drug game behind him, which he knew would come with some backlash from friends and a loss of money.
“I remember I had these two Nextel Chirps — the phones — and I rolled down the street one day and just threw them out the window, and I was done,” he explained while appearing in the Drink Champs episode. “When I would see people in the street, they were like, ‘Yo, I owe you money!’ I’m like, ‘Nah, you ain’t owe me nothing. Keep that, live your life, I’ma do this.’”
Jeezy The Snowman
Jeezy also explained the initial reactions from his closest friends when he decided to pursue rap full-time.
“It was so funny to people that I was really trying to be a rapper. You wouldn’t know how many homies laughed at me,” Jeezy recalled. “I’ll never forget, when I got that first deal and when ‘Dem Boyz’ came on the radio, it was God, man … The minute everybody started getting indicted is when I started blowing up. I was like, ‘D-mn, I’m supposed to be here.’”
