Jay Z Reportedly Offered Lil Wayne $175,000 to Sign With Roc-A-Fella Back in the Day

"Two teeth in my mouth is 175," Lil Wayne said. "My bottom teeth. So we laugh about that all the time.”

April 17, 2016

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Complex Original

That Lil Wayne was once confronted by Jay Z about signing with Roc-A-Fella Records back sometime around 2005 is generally common knowledge. What has remained unclear over the last decade was the kind of offer that Hov presented to Weezy...until now. In a new interview with DJ Drama, Tunechi finally revealed that Jay wanted to cut him a check for $175,000 to sign with his label, a sum that Wayne thought laughable at the time.

Finally, in between jokes, Jay managed to drop the figure on Wayne. "That man offered me 175 [thousand dollars],” Weezy revealed in a burst of laughter. "Two teeth in my mouth is 175. My bottom teeth. So we laugh about that all the time.” It's an interesting counter-factual to consider what rap history may have looked or sounded like if Wayne had accepted the offer, but it seems obvious in hindsight that $175,000 was never going to do it. Watch Lil Wayne tell the story himself below.