memphis-bleek

Memphis Bleek recently spoke on passing up an opportunity to get paid for his contribution to Jay-Z‘s Rocawear 10th Anniversary advertisement this year as a symbol of loyalty.

“Like, let me tell you something that just happened recently, right, you know they just did the tenth anniversary photo shoot for Rocawear?,” Bleek asked in an interview. “So they called me to come down there and do the picture or whatever. The Rocawear people tried to pay me, like they had a check for me at the photo shoot. And I’m like, ‘Nah, I can’t take that check.’ I think the check was like for between I think like $7,000 to $10,000. And I’m like, ‘I can’t take that check.’ And the dude he like, ‘Yo, why not?’ I’m like,'”Nah ’cause this my homie’s company. Why my man gotta pay me just to take some pictures? Like, this my n*gga! We from the [same] projects. You don’t have to pay me. [Doing] this is nothing.’ So then Jay called me the next day like, ‘Yo Bleek, why you ain’t take the money?’ I’m like, ‘Yo Hov, that’s like me stealing from you, just taking money from you, c’mon. What I did for you yesterday took 15 minutes out my day, you don’t have to pay me for that. I’ma get the money some other way.’ And that n*gga said to me, ‘Yo that’s why I love you, you one of the realest n*ggas ever, you would never meet nobody else in the world who would do that.’ And I sat back and thought about it, [and] he’s right. Who turning down money today? It’s just like, that’s my homie. That’s like if my brother, he like, yo I’m throwing a party, come to my party, and I gotta charge him for a walk-thru. Is you crazy?! C’mon. Karma is everything. You don’t have to pay me for no picture, I’m cool. And that’s just the loyalty I have to my team. And anybody that ever been close to me, you never gon’ meet nobody that tell you yo Bleek is foul, Bleek is this — I’m always for my team first.” -Hip Hop DX