Jay-Z Says He Would Have Robbed Best Friend Chris Martin as a Teen

Posted on Aug 25th 2010 7:00AM by Andrew Kerr
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Andrew H. Walker, Getty Images

They may be the best of friends now, but Jay-Z believes things would have been different if he'd met Coldplay's Chris Martin when they were teenagers.

The rap mogul says it would have been a different story if the two had met when in their formative years. "That's a different scenario. He couldn't walk through Marcy [a housing project in Brooklyn, N.Y.]. I was a different person then. I wasn't open to the world and to cultures. I would have been, 'Yo! Who are you? Give me your money', the rap star told Q magazine (via the Daily Mirror).

He added, "You couldn't have a guy like Chris walking through Marcy. He'd have to get robbed. At best."

By the age of 13, Jay-Z, real name Shawn Carter, was dealing drugs in the housing project while at the same time Martin was living in a dormitory at Sherborne boys' school in Dorset. Now however, the two have struck up one of the closest relationships in show business.

Martin and wife Gwyneth Paltrow attended the rapper's wedding to Beyonce in 2008 while the couple's two children, Apple and Moses, refer to the rapper as Uncle Jay. "They are a really cool family with beautiful kids, who happen to be good at the jobs they do."

Martin isn't the only rock star to come out of Devon that Jay has a soft spot for. Speaking of Muse's Matt Bellamy, Jay said, "That man is a superstar. I told him he was awesome. All the good s--- comes from Devon."

One British star the rapper is less than enamoured of is Noel Gallagher. In the interview he spoke of the former Oasis man's outspoken reaction to a rapper headlining Glastonbury. He said, "I thought it was a bit music-racist. An old way of thinking. Everyone trying to do something new is going to come up against a Noel Gallagher figure in their life."