by Cedric ‘BIG CED’ Thornton
April 10, 2024
“I don’t even want to take your money. He was paying me as a staff and I didn’t even want to take your money and he was like, ‘You’re good.'”
Senior Vice President of Roc Nation, Lenny S. is also a photographer who has worked with JAY-Z for many years in various roles in his companies.
In a recently resurfaced clip originally aired on the popular financial podcast Earn Your Leisure, the executive revealed that Shawn Corey Carter (JAY-Z) paid him out of his pocket when the billionaire was between record labels and didn’t have employment for Lenny.
During a discussion with podcast hosts Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings, the Roc Nation executive explained that JAY had officially retired before running Def Jam and years before he started Roc Nation, and Lenny was still an employee of Roc-A-Fella Records. Although he received offers from other record labels yearning for his A&R services, JAY-Z advised him to chill. But Lenny took a job with Virgin Records and worked there for about a year.
“When he retires, I leave to go to Virgin Records for a year. I didn’t want to work anywhere else, but Jay really, really wasn’t doing anything, like really. Like, he was done, and there was no work. There was no label. But, I was still on his staff, and I was like, JAY, I’m getting these offers from all these labels, like, yo, let me just come, and he’s like, no, you good, just stay here, and I’m like, we’re not doing anything.”
“I don’t even want to take your money. He was paying me as a staff and I didn’t even want to take your money and he was like, ‘You’re good.’
Lenny said he went to work with Big John Platt at Virgin Records for a year, but not before getting the blessing from JAY-Z because the rapper and Big John were great friends. That made it easier for Lenny to break away from JAY-Z. When JAY-Z became the president of Def Jam, Lenny went back into the fold and has been working with the Brooklyn-bred businessman ever since.
