Jay Z learnt business acumen from drug dealing

Jay Z found it easy setting up Roc Nation after learning about the brutal side of business from illegally dealing drugs on the street.

The hip-hop mogul found it easy to set up his Roc Nation record label and build a musical empire because he already had years of experience illegally selling crack on the streets of Brooklyn in New York City. He told Vanity Fair magazine: ''I know about budgets. I was a drug dealer. To be in a drug deal, you need to know what you can spend, what you need to re-up.''

The 43-year-old reformed family man - who has 20-month-old daughter Blue Ivy with his wife Beyonce - wishes he had got out of the drug scene earlier and thought about the big picture instead of focusing on the instant cash. Jay Z added: ''Not until later [did I have regrets], when I realised the effects on the community. I started looking at the community on the whole, but in the beginning, no. ''I was thinking about surviving.

I was thinking about improving my situation. I was thinking about buying clothes.'' The music mogul is reported to have raked in $42 million in the past year, adding to a net worth of about $475 million, a far cry from his original ''exit strategy'' of setting up a barbershop. Jay added: ''If you want to start some sort of barbershop or carwash - those were the businesses back then.

Things you can get in easily to get out of [that] life. ''You have to have an exit strategy, because your window [for dealing drugs] is very small. You're going to get locked up or you're going to die.''