Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to even the rich, add free on Amazon Music. Download the app today.

From Wendry, I'm Brooke Sifrin, and I'm Aresha Skidmore Williams. And this is Even the Rich.

Over the last four episodes, we've been singing to you about the rise and rise and rise of Jay-Z and Beyonce.

They made music and babies. They started businesses and became billionaires. And they never gave up on their marriage, even when the Go and Gata.

We covered so much Brooke, but I'm still left with this question. Is there anything Jay and Beyonce can't do?

That's why I wanted to talk to Zach O'Malley Greenberg. He's a senior editor at Forbes Magazine. And he's also the author of Empire State of Mind, how Jay-Z went from street corner to corner office.

It's a book we relied on while we were researching this series. And Zach leaves no stone unturned.

Like you know how we talked about the Champagne label, Jay-Bot? Yeah, of course. Well, Zach actually went to France to see the sellers with his own two eyes.

Oh my God. Jealous. Yeah, same. We had a great conversation about what Jay-Z and Beyonce learned from each other in order to grow their empires together.

We also talked about how in the last few years, the two of them have emerged as leading advocates in the fight for social justice.

And can I just say, as a woman of color, I've really enjoyed learning about all the ways Jay and Beyonce have used their voice to speak out on all of the racial injustices in this country.

Yeah, I can't wait to listen.

Hi, Zach. It's so great to talk to you. Thanks so much for having me. Let's jump right in. You've written several books, but Empire State of Mind was your first.

Can you walk me through how that book came about?

It was a strange occurrence. Really, an editor reached out to me and she said, would you like to write a book about Jay-Z or Diddy? And I said, yes.

It's the easiest question I've ever had to answer. So we just kind of went from there and it was kind of deciding, okay, we're going to do Jay-Z or we're going to do Diddy?

I think we should do Jay-Z right now. There are a few reasons behind that, but I think part of it was that Jay-Z was musically relevant in a way that Diddy wasn't.

How much did you know about Jay-Z going into this book?

Well, you know, I grew up in New York, so I was always listening to hip-hop. There was no one. There's no one bigger than Jay-Z in New York.

You know, really anywhere in terms of following the business, when I first got to Forbes in 2007 full-time, editor came to my cubicle and she said, you're under 30, do you like hip-hop?

And I said, yes. And she said, do you want to help me put together the first ever list of the top burning rappers? And I said, yes, yes, yes.

So I ended up writing a story about Tupac Shakur and how he was making more money dead than all the five living rappers.

...