Jay Z, whom we knew as Shawn Carter. I was a Detective working in Brooklyn North Narcotics in the mid 80's. Crack was like a tidal wave drug that overwhelmed many poor neighborhoods and the police dept. very quickly. He was moving a lot of crack from his base at the Marcy projects, and had a very tight network that sold on the street but also many "peephole" locations, which were abandoned buildings or storefronts.

They would basically kidnap homeless people and lock them in the peephole spots and force them to sell until they were let out. The homeless guys and few women were basically crazed from near starvation and/or smoking the crack they were selling by the time we rescued them by busting the place. They couldn't give us any credible intelligence and were useless when debriefed.

We always were one or two people shy of proving Jay Z at the top of the network. Those at his top inner circle were very loyal and never flipped, although we and everyone on the street knew what was up.

He got out of the game before getting killed or locked up, which is very rare and even more impressive. You know the rest of his story.