SAINt JHn Shares Hilarious Advice He Received From JAY-Z

When SAINt JHn needed some advice about how to navigate the entertainment industry, he received some wisdom from JAY-Z. But the advice he received was not what he was looking for.

During the PLLRS speaker series, held at the SoHo Works in Brooklyn, SAINt JHn shared the conversation he had with HOV and Kareem “Biggs” Burke at the Roc Nation office in Los Angeles.

“I’m a rebellious artist. I think the only way to be truly successful in an unconventional time is to be brave enough to believe in something when nobody else believes in that even when those people are standing closest to you, and you’re trying to communicate your dreams. It’s your Dream,” SAINt JHn told journalist Keith Nelson, Jr, and PR strategist Simone “You slept in it, you woke up, and you saw it. So, you have to believe in it when no one else can.

“One day, we’re at the Roc Nation office with Jay and Emory, and some other people. Biggs pulled me to the side and said, ‘Yo, Jay. Talk to him. Give him some Jay wisdom.” Then Jay says, “Yo, sometimes you have to brush your teeth with the other hand. You have to put on your pants with the other foot first sometimes,” It’s Jay so you have to be like, ‘I don’t know what that means, but it sounds fly.’”-SAINt JHn laughed.

“When you’ve been around the sun a couple of times, you can get what seems like lofty advice, until you realize someone is trying to tell you that you have to be willing to trust a different process,” he continued.

The Grammy-Award winner also spoke about the creative process of his latest Festival Season and how he expresses his emotions as he has achieved success as an artist.

“The greater you become in visibility, the less human you become [to people] in real life,” he explained. “When I’m at home in Puerto Rico, by myself and at seven o’clock in the morning, or nine o’clock at night, and I just finished working, and I look around the room, and it’s just the people I hired to be there, it’s tough,” he said. “That’s the challenge. I set myself on that path. But the challenge is nobody’s going to feel sad for me. Nobody wants to hear a rich n***a cry.”