Jay-Z on viral debate: Take $500,000, skip dinner with him

Jay-Z settles a viral debate, telling folks to take the $500,000 and skip having dinner with him

Jay-Z wears a black suit jacket and white button-up dress shirt with his hair in free-form dreadlocks

Oct. 23, 2023 6:12 PM PT

Jay-Z wants you to take the money.

The viral online debate that asks, “Would you rather have one meal with Jay-Z and pick his brain, or get $500,000 cash?,” has finally been settled — and the “99 Problems” hitmaker says take the cash. Jay-Z, born Shawn Carter, addressed the philosophical question that has haunted social media since 2021 in an interview with CBS’ Gayle King.

“You gotta take the money,” he said. “What am I gonna say?”

Fans have argued that the wisdom a person could gain from picking Jay-Z’s brain over pizza and beer could be more valuable than the $500,000, because the lucky dinner date would walk away knowing how to earn more than a half-million bucks. But the rapper countered that stance, pointing out that he has been sharing his wisdom with the world for decades.

“You got all that in the music for $10.99,” he quipped. “So that’s a bad deal ... I wouldn’t tell you to cut a bad deal, right?”

“Take the $500,000, go buy some albums and listen to the album,” he continued. “It’s all there. If you piece it together and really listen to the music for the words, for what it is, it’s all there. Everything that I said was gonna happen, happened. Everything that I said I wanted to do, I’ve done. It is the blueprint, literally to me, and my life and my journey. It’s there already.”

In Jay-Z’s song 2021 hit “U Don’t Know,” he raps, “That’s another difference that’s between me and them / Heh, I smarten up, open the market up / One million, two million, three million, four / In 18 months, 80 million more / Now add that number up with the one I said before”

“I sell ice in the winter, I sell fire in hell / I am a hustler baby, I’ll sell water to a well.”

And in the music mogul’s 2017 track “The Story of O.J.” he raps about investing in artwork and creating generational wealth: “Financial freedom my only hope / F— livin’ rich and dyin’ broke / I bought some artwork for one million / Two years later, that s— worth two million / Few years later, that s— worth eight million / I can’t wait to give this s— to my children / Y’all think it’s bougie, I’m like, it’s fine / But I’m tryin’ to give you a million dollars worth of game for $9.99.”

Jay-Z’s rare interview and exclusive tour of “The Book of HOV” exhibit at the Brooklyn Public Library, explores the rapper’s body of work, including his original master recordings, various business ventures and efforts to reform the criminal justice system. He also opens up about what it meant to him when his wife Beyoncé Knowles-Carter and their daughter Blue Ivy went on the Renaissance World Tour together this year.

The two-part interview with King airs later this week on “CBS Mornings.”