Jay Z reckons that he's a living embodiment of the American dream after pulling himself up from a bad neighbourhood in New York to become a multi-millionaire, and he said he realised how far he'd come when he became an investor in the US basketball team the Brooklyn Nets. The rapper was at the launch of the video game NBA 2K13, and he said that growing up he could scarcely imagine he'd own a piece of a hoops team.

"Yeah I think I'm the American dream," Jay-Z said, according to the Wall Street Journal. "That whole thing that you could come here and pull yourself up by the bootstraps, like that whole thing what America has always put up to the world that we represent. I feel that. Yes, I've lived that." The rapper went on to admit that it was success on - and not off - the court that he dreamed of when playing as a kid, commenting "You know the three-two-one, oh, he hits the winning shot. But no one was ever on the court saying I was gonna own the Knicks. Yes, it's way beyond any of my wildest dreams." The Nets will play in the newly built Barclays Center, but now before Hova himself christens it with a run of eight concerts.