Jay Z

The ‘99 Problems’ rapper has opened up about living in a “tough situation” with his family in the projects of Brooklyn before he hit the big time.

The 53-year-old hip hop legend told Vanity Fair: "We were living in a tough situation, but my mother managed; she juggled. Sometimes we’d pay the light bill, sometimes we paid the phone, sometimes the gas went off. We weren’t starving -we were eating, we were okay. But it was things like you didn’t want to be embarrassed when you went to school; you didn’t want to have dirty sneakers or wear the same clothes over again. And crack was everywhere - it was inescapable."