Idris Elba Admits He ‘Hustled’ His Way On To Jay-Z’s ‘American Gangster’ Album
etcanada.comIdris Elba revealed how he nabbed a cameo on Jay-Z’s 2007 American Gangster album. The actor chatted to Jimmy Fallon on “The Tonight Show” this week, with the host mentioning that he’d featured on both Paul McCartney’s McCartney III Imagined album, as well as Jay-Z’s.
Elba joked, when asked which he felt more pressure being involved with, “Both those artists don’t know I’m on [there]. I literally hustled my way onto those albums.” READ MORE: Idris Elba Goes Head-To-Head With A Massive Lion In Upcoming Thriller ‘Beast’ The star, who wrote and produced Jay-Z’s intro track for the album, shared of how it all came out, “So I was in ‘American Gangster’ and at the time I heard Jay was about to do an album associated with the film and I was like, ‘I need to get on that.’ As you do. “No idea why Jay would be like, ‘Yeah, sure!
Do it!’” he laughed. READ MORE: Idris Elba Grants Tilda Swinton 3 Wishes In Eventful Trailer For ‘Three Thousand Years Of Longing’ Elba continued, “So Lenny S., who works with Jay, was a good friend of Oronde [Garrett, Idris’s manager].
I wrote this long poem [with] a friend of mine, we put it to a beat — actually it was a rap, but it didn’t sound good as a rap. “So I said, ‘Maybe I should speak this.’ ‘Cause Jay might be a little more accommodating to my speaking voice.
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