JAY-Z says that touring with DMX pushed him to get better at what he does: ‘He Improved My Stage Show’

“He played so hard against me.” JAY-Z said of the late rapper, “I never met a person more competitive with me, like ever. Not even my big brother.”

JAY-Z is being honest when he says that traveling with DMX made him better on stage.

The 51-year-old “Song Cry” singer talked with LeBron James and other people at the season four opening of HBO’s The Shop: Uninterrupted about how the late rapper inspired him on the Hard Knock Life tour in 1999.

JAY-Z said this about DMX: “There was a competitive thing, but it was big love.”

“He played so hard against me.” “I’ve never met a person who was more competitive with me than my big brother,” he said. “My fondest memory of DMX is he improved my stage show.”

The rapper talked about how the first night of the show was “sold out,” and JAY-Z said that he wаnted to see DMX’s act before his own.

“X is about to go, and I’m like, ‘I wanna see,'” I remember, JAY-Z. “And he goes [growls], and the f—— arena goes crаzy.”

“First, it’s so loud that I’m like, ‘Oh s—,'” the “Empire State of Mind” singer went on. “He has a thing, like an Alize and Hennessy mix, it looks like blооd — like he’s drinking blооd — and he’s running back and forth [on the stage].”