Jeezy Recalls Being ‘Too Embarrassed To Ask’ About Money Management

Jeezy is all about his bag and businesses. But there was a time when he needed a little pep talk from Jay-Z to take his funds seriously.

The rapper, entrepreneur, and published author recently appeared on “Assets Over Liabilities,” where he recalled his early days in the rap game and slacking on his money management. There was a time when Jeezy took over a year to cash a publishing check due to all the money he had made from hustling.

“You got to talk to John Plant over at Warner because he was the first person that gave me a check for publishing,” Jeezy explained. “I ain’t cash the check for like a year-and-a-half.

“He called me like, ‘What’s going on with the check I gave you?’ ‘I’m a keep it real with you; I left it in some pants, and I think it got faded, and I don’t know where it’s at,'” he added.

It then took a follow-up call from Jay-Z to get Jeezy moving on cashing the publishing check.

“JAY-Z called me like, ‘Yo, you gotta quit playing.’ I was like, ‘Alright, I gotta.’ Now, at the time, when I came in from the streets to music, I was good. I was straight. The music, to me, I was more infatuated that people liked what I was doing.”

Jeezy had such a hustler mentality that he didn’t enter the rap game for the money. He just enjoyed making music that people loved. Once the show money started rolling, the “Thug Motivation” rapper thought he was set and overlooked the paychecks due to all the cash he was receiving.

“I didn’t need the money, so I thought. I just had the bread. Then, I was getting money for shows; it was like taking ice cream from a baby. It was the sweetest sh*t ever,” he said.

Jeezy still didn’t even have a bank account when he released his debut album in 2005.

“When Def Jam gave me my check, I didn’t have an account,” he recalled. “Shoebox, I was just putting checks in the box. I didn’t understand how it worked. I was too embarrassed to ask… By the way, I was paranoid of banks. The first thing I’m thinking is it gon’ be money laundering.”

The Atlanta native signed to Def Jam in 2004 and released his debut album “Let’s Get It: Thug Motivation 101” the following year. The album debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 with 172,000 copies in first-week sales and received platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).