The snowman talked about his new album, a time when he hated rappers, why he wants to be bigger than Jay-Z and the state of the poor in a candid Fader TV interview recently.

“At this point I just think it’s a reality check for everybody,” Jeezy said of America’s economic state. “If you got it, you got it, if you don’t, you don’t. It’s either haves or have-nots right now. There’s no in between.”

“If you see the video, we’re dealing with people, like it’s real shit,” he said. “I’m ridin’ around, I’m hollerin’ at real ni**as, I’m hollerin’ at real people, I’m hollerin’ at families and households hit by the recession, they hangin’ black flags outside they shit like, ‘it’s nothin we just came through, we blessed, we good …’”

The track is featured on the upcoming album The Recession, which Jeezy said is 80% produced by him. He’s trying to do big things.

“I don’t wanna be like Jay-Z, I wanna be bigger because he already set his mark,” he told The Fader. “So if I’ma come in the game, I gotta come in the game and set a higher standard.”

He hasn’t always felt like that, though. He used to loath emcees.

“I remember we hated rappers, like ‘f*ck them ni**as, for real,” he admitted. “‘You aint gon’ come to my hood. Shoot a vid where ni**a, is you crazy? You ain’t comin’ up here f*ckin’ up our trap to shoot a video. Ni**a go to your hood and do that.’ That’s how we looked at it.”

But it was always cool to ride through beating the latest rap album.

“At one time, if you didn’t have a Master P No Limit CD in you car, you was a sucker,” Jeezy recalled. “If you didn’t come through -- ‘we no limit soldiers’ -- bumpin that shit, you might as well not even come through.”

The Recession hits shelves on September 2.