Credit: Alamy

Jay-Z and Jeezy are longtime collaborators in hip-hop, but they’ve also got each other’s backs in public. The pair were once involved in an altercation in Las Vegas, and Hov’s actions convinced Jeezy that he was a stand-up guy.

During an interview with TV One TV, the Atlanta rapper opened up about the time punches were thrown during the incident in Nevada. While he didn’t give much backstory behind the punch-up, he did describe Jay’s loyal actions as they went back-to-back. Hov refused to leave after a request from his team to back down.

“A lot of people don’t know, we done been in some fist fights and everything,” he said. “Some things popped off in Vegas … I gotta say, Hov got hands! ‘Cause me and him was getting down. We was back-to-back. I heard his assistant say, ‘Jay, get in the car!’ And he was like, ‘I ain’t leaving Jeezy!’ I was like, ‘Yo, I rock with him.’”

Jeezy explained that he and Jay have always been connected “mentally,” stating they would rock with each other away from music due to having old souls and coming from the same struggle. “I have to look at somebody like that like how I would look at somebody in the hood who was already getting money before I was,” he said. “I’m like, ‘How you do this and stay out?'”

Jay and Jeezy have collaborated several times over the years. Songs include the ‘Go Crazy’ remix on 2005’s from Let’s Get It: Thug Motivation 101, ‘I Do’ with Andre 3000 from 2011’s TM:103 Hustlerz Ambition and ‘Seen It All’ from 2014’s Seen It All: The Autobiography. Jeezy repaid the favour on ‘Real As It Gets’ from 2009’s The Blueprint 3.

The ‘Put On’ hitmaker credited Jay for having enough respect for himself to not be a people-pleaser and lose his integrity. “That’s the biggest thing I see in him,” he said. “You gotta have tough skin. Anybody can be an artist. Anybody can be a rapper. But when you start talking about life changing and being in a position that most of us never thought would be humanly possible, and balancing all that and not losing yourself, that takes a special kind of skin.”

Jeezy once told Revolt that he didn’t cash in a seven-figure check because he believed he had enough money from hustling. After that, Jay called him to tell him to “quit playing.”

“When Def Jam gave me my check, I didn’t have an account,” he said. “Shoebox, I was just putting checks in the box. I didn’t understand how it worked. I was too embarrassed to ask. By the way, I was paranoid of banks. The first thing I’m thinking is it gon’ be money laundering.”