Yeah, Jay-Z himself always brings up how street nikkas looked at rappers as peons...shyt that was the perspective Jay came in the game with "Half these rappin ass nikkas wanna work for me" "80% of these nikkas with deals can't see me with the dough"
shyt had LL Cool J so bothered he made the Loungin Remix a sneak diss track
Jay was saying that because he was still in the street at the time and had more money than a lot of the broke rappers at the time. But the actual street dudes hung out with the rappers in the 80's and 90's. Especially in NY. They threw parties with all the rappers back then. That's why you saw Supreme and all them in Queens hanging out with the rappers. They didn't think the rappers were wack. Preme always said they respected them. He was with Melle Mel all the time, and mad other Hip Hop legends. Bimmy was running with Run DMC while he was with Supreme Team. The street and music was always connected. Not separate.
AZ (not the rapper) said that him, Alpo and Rich always hung out with Rakim and LL when he was uptown and they thought he was fly and took him to Dapper Dan. LL talks about being with Alpo back in the day and comparing jewelry and cars. Bobby Brown was always around my way chillin' with the OG's. Growing up, we always saw the hustlers with the rappers and singers. That relationship wasn't separate in the 80's and 90's around the way. So this narrative that OG's and dealers looked down on rappers is mad false.
And sidenote, Jay was mad that he was doper than rappers at the time, but couldn't get a deal. His thing was, those dudes were corny and he was nice, but they had deals and he couldn't get signed. So he would mock them by speaking on how they were broke.