Given that Jay-Z jumped hurdle after hurdle in his quest to become hip-hop’s first billionaire, it’s hard to imagine him as anything other than the esteemed mogul he is today. As his former labelmate explained, however, on his recent episode of REVOLT’S Drink Champs, securing his first platinum plaque was one of the more difficult challenges of the Jigga Man’s career.

Mike Stobe/BIG3/Getty Images

Around the twenty-five minute mark, Jones reflects on an era in which hip-hop artists were platinum in a time where others were struggling to do so. “You’re a platinum artist, hands down,” prefaces Jones, addressing Nore’s artistic accomplishments. “It was a different era when artists weren’t going platinum, some of the biggest artists people look up to now, in that moment, in the nineties, wasn’t going platinum. They might have been hot or fly, but they wasn’t going platinum. was going platinum, NORE was going platinum. Cam was going platinum, was going platinum — from New York.”

When NORE suggests that Jay-Z was in a different category, Jones reminds him that  wasn’t instantaneous for the hip-hop legend. “It took him a while to go platinum,” Jones explains. “Like, he didn’t start off going platinum. And that’s no shots at Hov, he’s a fucking billionaire. But his main battle was making it to be platinum. He had the platinum Rollie, they had everything, but it was hard for him to make platinum. And then, when he finally made platinum, he stayed there, he only got better and iller, and way triller, you dig? But in that era, he was in the same fight as all of us.”

Check out the full episode of REVOLT’s Drink Champs below, featuring plenty of material from Jim Jones, NORE, and more.