JAY-Z recalled the origin of his iconic diamond hand sign during a recent interview with Gayle King on CBS Mornings. Speaking with King while touring his Book Of HOV exhibit at the Brooklyn Public Library, he explained that it has to do with his albums being certified diamond. JAY has flashed the hand sign countless times over the course of his career, including on the cover of his 2000 album The Dynasty: Roc La Familia.
“When we first started, we had a group called Christion,” JAY-Z explained. “When you sell 10 million, you go diamond, right? We believed in them so heavy, we was like, this group is going to sell 10 million records. So, we started putting the diamond up for Christion. That’s how it all came about. And then we started playing with it, and then we started doing it at shows. Then the whole crowd started doing it, and it stuck.”
JAY-Z Attends "Book Of HOV" Exhibit
Elsewhere in the interview, JAY discussed his iconic performance at Glastonbury in 2008, when the event was still a rock festival. Chirs Martin from Coldplay convinced him to go through with the set. “At one point, I was like, ‘Why am I going there?’” JAY-Z recalled. “If they don’t want me there, I don’t want to go. And Chris from Coldplay was instrumental on [convincing me to play]. He was like, ‘Jay, they love you. It’s just the old guard, they don’t know. It’s always been a rock festival.’ They didn’t have anything against me personally. It was just like, this is a rock festival, this is what it is. The world was changing.” Check out JAY's interview with King below.
JAY-Z Speaks With Gayle King
Additionally, JAY-Z also spoke about the viral debate over whether lunch with him or $500,000 is more valuable, as well as what it will take for him to drop new music. Be on the lookout for further updates on JAY-Z on HotNewHipHop.
[Via]