Dinner with Jay-Z or $500,000? Rapper finally settles the debate with surprising answer

The hypothetical question, "Would you rather have dinner with rapper Jay-Z or take $500,000 in cash?" has been making rounds on social media since 2017. Last year, it finally reached Jay-Z, who settled the debate with a surprising answer. In an interview with CBS Morning's Gayle King, Jay-Z advised fans to take the $500,000 and buy his wisdom. 

What's in the meme?

The “dinner with Jay-Z or $500K” meme has been going viral in various iterations since 2017. The premise of the meme is if the "99 Problems" rapper can share wisdom worth $500K over a dinner. 

The meme took off in 2021 when users who picked the dinner with Jay-Z were trolled for their choice, implying that taking the money was the obvious correct answer, as per Know Your Meme.

Years later, the rapper himself said, "You gotta take the money."

Here's why Jay-Z thinks taking the money is right

Before becoming Jay-Z, Shawn Carter was struggling as a 13-year-old child, selling drugs on the street. He has had an aspirational rise as a rapper and music producer, selling over 140 million records.

He turned his musical success into a sprawling business empire. Apart from his own companies, he has made lucrative investments in record labels, sports teams, clothing brands, and alcohol brands. Thus, Jay-Z's wise money moves made him the world's first billionaire rapper. He is now estimated to be worth $2.5 billion, as per Forbes. 

Therefore, choosing a dinner to utilize his wisdom should be the right choice. However, Jay-Z believes that money could be a better bet as people can find all the wisdom in his music. With 13 Billboard 200 No. 1 albums, the rap icon from Brooklyn doesn't seem to be wrong. 

“I wouldn’t tell you to cut a bad deal. Like, take the $500,000, go buy some albums, and listen to the albums,” he said in the CBS Mornings interview. He added that if fans "piece it together" and listen to the music for words, they will find all his wisdom there. 

"The blueprint to me and my life and my journey is there already," the rapper said. 

While Jay-Z says he would take the money, the rapper himself once took a high-profile lunch meeting with legendary investor Warren Buffet, back in 2010. The two reportedly discussed the strategies of investing in music at the time. The rapper talked about how he invests only in businesses and music that he understands.

"Music is like stocks, there’s the hot thing of the moment," the rapper said. He suggested that people often make emotional decisions based on that and fail to stick with things that they know. 

This prompted Buffet to say that the Roc Nation founder was a good source of money-making advice. 

"For a young person growing up, he’s the guy to learn from," the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway said at the time, as per CNBC Make It.

This article originally appeared on 7.29.24.