Scarface opened up about how Jay-Z and DJ Khaled quietly stepped in to help him during one of the hardest chapters of his life.
In his sit-down with Shannon Sharpe on the Club Shay Shay podcast, the Houston legend was asked about times when Hov has supported other artists, like helping Lil Wayne with his tax debt, aiding DMX in leaving Def Jam, and assisting 21 Savage with immigration issues. Scarface then shared his own story.
“So you remember when I caught the COVID and kidney failure and all that?” he said, recalling his health scare in 2020. “Jay-Z chucked me a lifeline … DJ Khaled chucked me a lifeline. So can’t nobody tell me shit about Jay-Z and DJ Khaled, because they chucked me a lifeline.
“I’m thankful, you know what I mean? ‘Cuz I wasn’t working. So shout out to Hov and DJ Khaled. When I talk to Jay-Z, I call him ‘the keeper of the culture,’ man, ‘cuz he do that big brother shit.”
When Sharpe pressed him on whether Jay-Z might drop another album, Scarface suggested Hov had little incentive. “He don’t have no reason to rap no more,” he explained. “We rapped because we was hungry. We spoke our heart, we told our side of the story because we was starving, man, you know? We ain’t starving no more … That man not starving no more, man.”
Scarface’s health battles began in March 2020 after contracting COVID-19, which escalated into “double bilateral pneumonia” and kidney failure. By October of that year, he publicly asked for help finding a donor, and in August 2021, his son Christopher Jordan stepped in, donating a kidney that saved his life.
