Jay-Z is pleased he didn't meet Coldplay pal Chris Martin when he was a teenager - because he would have tried to rob the singer.
The 99 Problems hitmaker is close friends with the British rocker, but insists he would have threatened Martin if he had walked through the Marcy Projects, a tough public housing complex in Brooklyn, New York where the rapper grew up.
He tells Britain's Daily Mirror, "That's a different scenario. He couldn't walk through Marcy. I was a different person then. I wasn't open to the world and to the cultures. I would have been, 'Yo! Who are you? Give me your money.' You couldn't have a guy like Chris walking through Marcy. He'd have to get robbed. At best."
But now Jay-Z, real name Shawn Carter, is pleased he's struck up a friendship with the Yellow hitmaker and his wife Gwyneth Paltrow: "They are a really cool family with beautiful kids, who happen to be good at the jobs they do."
