Jay-Z told Jeezy to stop joking around about his money management.

Jeezy has come a long way since the early days of his rap career. His hustler mentality meant he was more interested in the music than the money. It wasn't until Jay-Z gave him a pep talk that he began to take his finances seriously.

Jeezy recalled on the show "Assets Over Liabilities" that he once took over a year to cash a publishing check due to all the money he was making from hustling. As he had no understanding of the banking system, he was embarrassed to ask for help.

“You got to talk to John Plant over at Warner because he was the first person that gave me a check for publishing,” Jeezy said. “I ain’t cash the check for like a year-and-a-half. He called me like, ‘What’s going on with the check I gave you?’ ‘I’m a keep it real with you I left it in some pants and I think it got faded and I don’t know where it’s at.’”

It then took a follow-up call from Jay-Z to get Jeezy moving on cashing the publishing check. “JAY-Z called me like, ‘Yo, you gotta quit playing.’ I was like, ‘Alright, I gotta.’ Not at the time, when I came in from the streets to music, I was good. I was straight. The music, to me, I was more infatuated that people liked what I was doing.”

Jeezy still didn't even have a bank account when he released his debut album in 2005. “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.”

Thankfully, Jeezy eventually got his finances in order. His debut album, “Let’s Get It: Thug Motivation 101,” was released in 2005 and debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200 with 172,000 copies in first-week sales. It was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.

Jeezy's success story is a lesson in the importance of financial literacy. It's clear that the hustler mentality and love of music didn't prevent Jeezy from becoming a successful entrepreneur. It just took a little pep talk from Jay-Z to get him on the right track.

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