JAY-Z is revered for not only his legendary rap career, but his elite business acumen — and his billionaire aura literally left comedian HaHa Davis in awe when they lunched together a few years ago.
The Detroit, Michigan funnyman (real name Carlos Davis) appeared as a guest on LeBron James and Maverick Carter’s barbershop series The Shop alongside rapper Tee Grizzley, boxer Devin Haney and actor Amin Joseph, where he recalled being star-struck during his sit-down with Hov.
AD LOADING...
“I enjoyed the lunch with the Jay. When I met Jay — bro, I ain’t never seen a man that sat down and his shirt didn’t wrinkle,” he said, prompting laughter from the the room. “Like, what type of money is that? What type of money Jay got to where his shirt didn’t wrinkle?!”
He added: “When we was sitting down, they asked Jay if he as hungry and he was like, ‘Nah, I’m straight.’ But we was starving! But we couldn’t be the only ones eating and Jay not eating, so we left there starving! We had a conversation and we didn’t even get the lunch!”
Despite going hungry, HaHa Davis was seen flashing a big smile when he shared a photo on social media of him breaking bread with JAY-Z in March 2019. “Lunch with Jay Z workin man workin man yea that’s me #WorkinWorkin,” he captioned the pic.
Shortly after, Davis appeared on Hot 97 and explained how the sought-after meeting came about, revealing the Roc Nation boss had put the word out through his people that he wanted to sit down with the rising comedian.
AD LOADING...
“We were just breaking bread,” he said. “Jay had put out smoke signals the week before All-Star Weekend, like, ‘Man, I want to meet HaHa Davis.’ I don’t even know who the first person he said that too — all these random people just got to calling me like, ‘JAY-Z looking for you.’ Zoey Dollaz had hit me up in the DM like, ‘Jay want to meet you.’
“So I sent Zoey my number and JAY-Z people reached out to me in an email. JAY-Z’s so much of a powerful person, his people said, ‘Listen, he gon’ call you from a blocked number.’ I answered all of them! The whole time I’m looking at all these blocked numbers and I’m answering all of them. I know half of them where bill collectors.”
AD LOADING...
He continued: “Then he called and at first I didn’t know it was him. I’m like, ‘Who is this?’ He’s like, ‘Hello, can you hear me?’ I’m like, ‘Okay, this JAY-Z!’ And then we had a conversation.”
While he remained tight-lipped about what he and Hov spoke about exactly, Davis hinted at them working on “something special” together.
“He just told me how he loved what I’m doing and he wanted to do something special with me,” he said, giving little away. “The meeting we had the other day when we had lunch, he clarified what he wanted to do — we gon’ do something special.”
HaHa Davis shed more light on the meeting during an appearance on Million Dollaz Worth of Game in 2022, where he said he was stunned by JAY-Z’s mental time management.
“Jay, he was the coldest n-gga ’cause the man ain’t have no watch on, no phone, nothing,” he began. “I promise you, I got there at 1:59; the man was gone by 2:59. Like in his mind he knew had already been sitting there with me for 60 minutes.
AD LOADING...
“It was cold just to see him sit there for 60 minutes and be like, ‘Alright bro, I gotta roll.’ We had a great conversation and then he was just gone. But to see him that professional and that disciplined, it was the coldest shit I ever seen.”
While their collaborative plans have yet to be made public, Davis also revealed that the Brooklyn rap legend praised his comedic skills — specifically his signature catchphrases.
AD LOADING...
“Hov was just telling me about how the slogans I was coming up with at the time, muthafuckas were paying millions of dollars to come up with these slogans, but I was doing it with ease,” he said. “He was like, ‘You on the internet doing this shit with ease!’
“At the time, I didn’t know how good this shit really was — to this day, I really don’t know how good it was. To come off the internet and muthafuckas go take your shit ad make it seem like they came up with it like they’ve been in the green room all this time coming up with some great material. Y’all n-ggas stole this shit six months ago!”
