Forbes staff writer Zack O’Malley Greenburg set out to find the answer to one simple question: how did Jay-Z rise from Brooklyn’s impoverished housing projects to a position as one of America’s most successful businessmen?

Through extensive amounts of research and by conducting interviews with over seventy-five people for a year and a half, Greenburg documented his findings in his new book, Empire State of Mind: How Jay-Z Went From Street Corner To Corner Office. For the Forbes staff writer, who has covered finance and music for six years and has profiled luminaries like 50 Cent, Akon, Russell Simmons and Afrika Bambaataa, recounting Jay-Z’s steps from the Marcy housing projects and going behind the scenes of his business empire certainly represented a challenge.

Read the interview at The Atlanta Post