Jay-Z to Larry Johnson - Don’t Do Fantasia Video!
by 
Jeanne on June 30th, 2007
Hmmmm…. I’m gonna try not to think of Jay-Z as some sort of over-lord right now and just assume that he’s a great guy looking out for his friends. In a recent interview with Jason Whitlock, Larry Johnson described a bit about his relationship with Beyoncé’s fiancé. Here’s part one (part two is supposed to be published on Sunday):
Question: Explain your relationship with rapper Jay-Z.
Johnson: “A lot of people don’t know that goes beyond me just wearing his clothes. I could switch to Nike tomorrow and Jay would be completely cool with it. There are only a couple of athletes Jay-Z was cool enough to let in his little small circle of people that he calls friends. It’s me, LeBron and that’s about it. It’s a real tight group. It goes beyond me just wearing clothes. We’ve become friends now. If I wanted to do Nike or Reebok or anything else, he would have input, but he would never say ‘OK, I can’t (mess) with you no more because of that.’ He’s never been that way. We just happened to hit it off.”
Question: How does your association with Jay-Z affect your vision of how you see yourself as an athlete and an individual?
Johnson: “I don’t think it really affects me other than the fact I just know him. If anything when people mention me, of course, they mention him.”
Question: Is Jay-Z a mentor, someone who shapes your view on how to conduct business?
Johnson: “He definitely did that. Between me and you, he definitely didn’t want me to do that Fantasia video. I definitely got cussed out for that one. He told me there were a lot of things he wanted to do, but he couldn’t do them. He said, ‘You gotta be able to look at yourself as a business, as stock, and the less things you do, the more people will have interest in you. The more things you do, you water down your value.’ ”
Question: What do you want to accomplish as a football player?
Johnson: “I’m not a numbers guy. I’m not trying to rush for 2,000 yards or score so many touchdowns. My whole thing when I started playing football is to try and bring the old-school-mentality guys back. When people mention me, I want them to mention Jim Brown, Eric Dickerson, Walter Payton, Gale Sayers. That’s what I really play football for is the fun of that. I don’t really do it to be the richest, how many rushing yards I can get. I’d like to be mentioned with that group of guys.”
Question: What characteristics do the old-school running backs have that you respect?
Johnson: “Jim Brown was a player who didn’t take (stuff). Those guys really lived when racism was really around. Jim Brown stood up for Muhammad Ali. That’s what I like about old-school guys. You don’t see that anymore. They really stood up and did what they wanted to do.”
Question: What does Larry Johnson stand for?
Johnson: “I just stand up for people who want to be themselves. If you see something wrong, don’t be afraid to stand up and point them out. A lot of guys see what’s wrong, but they don’t say anything about it. People who stand up turn out to be the greatest people in this country — Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, guys who stood up for what they believed in.”
Question: Do you feel like you’re a part of anything bigger than just Larry Johnson?
Johnson: “Not right now. I don’t have that status to do something like that. It’ll take me a couple of more years, but I really want to point out the undercover racism that is everywhere.
“And I really like to help young black kids who really think it’s cool to look up to certain rappers because they think it’s cool at that time. They think it’s cool that they can’t put on a suit and tie. They think it’s corny to look nice. They can’t go to school without having a white T down to their knees. That’s what I’m really trying to fight as far as that image that they can’t dress up. It’s really black youths fighting ourselves. You know, when you’re a kid, be a kid. But when you’re 27 and you still wearing a white T and baggy pants, what does that say about your life and where you’re headed?”
Tags: beyonce, jay-z, larry johnson, fantasia, video
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1 opinion for Jay-Z to Larry Johnson - Don’t Do Fantasia Video!
Jan 25, 2008 at 1:20 pm
go jay
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