Hov passed the beat that became Big Pun's biggest hit
Jay-Z almost recorded over the instrumental that ended up being Big Pun's biggest hit, “Still Not A Player,” but he passed it. Per a recent revelation made by former Roc-A-Fella A&R Kyambo “Hip-Hop” Joshua at the R.O.A.D podcast, the beat created by Knobody was among the many that Hov wasn't interested in.
“There's a lot that didn't make it, that I tried to force and then other people used them,” Joshua recalled. “‘Still Not A Player, I had that. I had ‘Woah,' I think [Memphis] Bleek passed on that. We had ‘Lights, Camera, Action,' [JAY] said it was too slow. I was like, ‘What you mean it's too slow?'”
