The musician and actor was talking about his new movie, Beast, on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon when he recalled getting a spot on the rapper's tenth album.

"Both of these albums I'm on, and neither of those artists know I'm on either of those albums," Elba said to host Fallon. You understand what I mean? I actually worked for free on those albums.

He continued by saying that Jay Z had drawn inspiration from his record for his role as Tango in the American Gangster movie, in which he was a star.

Elba stated, "At the time, I heard Jay was about to do an album related to the movie." And I thought, "I better get on that. like you do Idris, I need to be on that Jay-Z album, you're like. Why Jay would say, "Yeah, sure, do it," is beyond me.