Monday, June 25, 2007

Jay-Z Mentors NFL Star Larry Johnson

When you think of possibilities for people to be your mentor, does Jay-Z come to mind? He does if you’re NFL star Larry Johnson. Apparently Jay and Larry are roommates, and Jay is never one to hold back on business advice.

In a recent interview with the Kansas City Star, Larry Johnson got candid about his friendship/mentorship with Rap Mogul Jay-Z. And like any other relationship, theirs is one with positive and negative aspects.

You may remember Johnson recently appearing in a Fantasia video. But according to Jay-Z, it was a no-no. Johnson told the KCS, “Between me and you, he definitely didn’t want me to do that Fantasia video. I definitely got cussed out for that one. He told me there were a lot of things he wanted to do, but he couldn’t do them. He said, ‘You gotta be able to look at yourself as a business, as stock, and the less things you do, the more people will have interest in you. The more things you do, you water down your value.’ ”

And at the end of the day, Jay and Larry are just friends trying to help each other succeed. “A lot of people don’t know that goes beyond me just wearing his clothes. I could switch to Nike tomorrow and Jay would be completely cool with it. There are only a couple of athletes Jay-Z was cool enough to let in his little small circle of people that he calls friends. It’s me, LeBron and that’s about it. It’s a real tight group. It goes beyond me just wearing clothes. We’ve become friends now. If I wanted to do Nike or Reebok or anything else, he would have input, but he would never say ‘OK, I can’t (mess) with you no more because of that.’ He’s never been that way. We just happened to hit it off.”

Their friendship has been put on hold for the past few weeks, though, as Jay-Z continues on his romantic getaway with long-time girlfriend Beyonce Knowles. After spending about a week on the open sea on a luxury yacht, the two hit up one of Jay’s favorite destinations over the weekend - St. Tropez.

Enjoy the pictures of the couple out at Marineland in St. Tropez on Saturday (June 23)!