Not everyone's path to success looks the same, and often, artists ditch formal education in pursuit of their careers. In the early days of Dipset, Juelz Santana dropped out of high school, and instead of encouraging or forcing him to return, Jim Jones claims he and Cam'Ron enforced a different education environment for the rising rapper.
"He already dropped out of high school by the time he got with us,” Jim told HipHopDX. “We tried to get him back in school, but he’s just a special kid. He’s one of them people they call like an idiot savant. When it comes to music, a person that’s a genius in what he does and is more or less on the terms of music and sh*t like that. He’s so much of a genius in what he does. That’s something that we need to curate and take care of it and make sure that he puts all his energy into that. ”
Jones added that he and Cam'rom turned "music into a school" and rewarded Santana when he kept his nose clean. "It wasn’t just partying heartily and sh*t like that," said the rapper. "If he didn’t have his sh*t together, he couldn’t go out with us to certain concerts. He couldn’t go out with us to certain clubs, and sh*t like that. He had to finish music, and not just finish music, make music that could make us some money and put him in a different position and sh*t like that.”
He also praised Cam'ron for staying focused on making sure that Dipset would become successful. Check out Jim Jones below.