Last night (March 29), The-Dream and Sean Garrett had a Battle of the Songwriters on Instagram live. Both showed how mighty their pen was and still is.
The-Dream played the unreleased version of “Holy Grail,” originally released on JAY-Z‘s Magna Carta Holy Grail album.
Check out the newly released version below:
https://tidal.com/browse/track/135832472
Jay-Z passed on the beat for Black Rob‘s “Whoa!”, so did Memphis Bleek and Amil.
The Whoa! beat which was produced by Buckwild was being shopped around New York after being given to Roc-A-Fella Records A&R Lenny S. “Lenny S gave the beat to Jay-Z, then Memphis Bleek, then Amil, and then other people. They all passed on it. So Rob does the record and a week later I walk into Def Jam, I hear Lenny playing the record going, ‘I told ya’ll this record is going to be crazy! All ya’ll niggas slept on this record.’” Whoa!’s producer, Buckwild told Complex
Whoa! was Black Rob’s biggest hit and the lead single off his debut album, Life Story. The song peaked at number 43 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Read: Pusha T passed on the beat for Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “Niggas In Paris”
Jay Electronica has released his very long-awaited album A Written Testimony, which had a lot of Jay-Z‘s presence.
The night before the album released, Jay Electronica went live on Instagram for his album release livestream after his listening parties, hosted by Tidal, were canceled due to Coronavirus concerns. On live he revealed that the album’s final track, “A.P.I.D.T.A.” was made the night that Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna Bryant, and seven others died in a very tragic helicopter crash on Jan. 26.
Neither Jay-Z or Jay Electronica mention Kobe or Gianna in the song but Jay-Z starts the song with lyrics morning a lost one rapping, “Uh, I got numbers on my phone that’ll never ring again / ‘Cause Allah done sent them home, and they’ll never, uh.” On his verse, Jay Electronica mourns the death of his mother rapping, “As I contemplate creation, the salt that heals my wounds / pour out my eyes just like libations / I can’t stop my mind from racing, I got numbers on my phone
Pictures on my phone / The day my mama died, I scrolled her texts all day long
The physical returns but the connection still stay strong.”
Kobe Bryant was one of Jay-Z’s biggest fans.
Listen to A.P.I.D.T.A below.
Read: Lil Wayne left 24 seconds of silence at the end of ‘Bing James’ to honor Kobe Bryant
Read: Jay-Z and Kanye West once performed “Niggas in Paris” 12 times in a row
Jay-Z and Kanye West once performed “N*ggas in Paris” from their collaboration album “Watch the Throne” 12 times in a row at a concert in Paris.
On December 12, 2011 at the Staples Center in LA, Jay-Z and Kanye performed the song a total of 9 times, the second night at the Staples center the duo performed the song 10 times after the crowd was told that cameras were in the building to film the music video for the song.
On June 1, 2012 at the Palais Omnisports de Bercy, during the first date in Paris, Jay and Ye broke the record, they performed the song 11 times. Jay-Z said: “The record is held by L.A. with ten times. But this song isn’t called ‘N*ggas in Los Angeles’. We gotta break that record and bring it to 11.“ and they performed it 11 times that night. Again in Paris on June 18, 2012, the duo performed N*ggas in Paris a total of 12 times at Palais Omnisports Paris Bercy.
The video of them performing has since been deleted on YouTube due to copyright.
Travis Scott has set a new record when he performed Goosebumps 14 times in a row. Read: Travis Scott once performed “Goosebumps” 14 Times in a Row
Read: Pusha T had Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “Niggas In Paris” beat first but he passed on it
In a 2010 interview with Interview Magazine, Jay-Z revealed that in 2003, Eminem wore a bulletproof vest to the studio when he collaborated with Jay-Z on ‘Moment of Clarity’, which he produced on The Black Album.
“I never even told him this, but I remember that Eminem came into the studio when we made ‘Moment of Clarity,’ which he produced, on The Black Album. So here’s Eminem. It’s 2003, I think The Eminem Show had come out, and he was, like, the biggest rapper in the world —he sold, like, 20 million records worldwide or some ridiculous number. Jay-Z told Interview Magazine
“But when he came to the studio, I remember I hugged him and I could feel that he had on a bulletproof vest. I couldn’t imagine being that successful. I mean, he’s a guy who loves rap and wanted to be successful his whole career. Then he finally gets it, and there’s this dark cloud over him. There’s this big beef between 50 Cent and Ja Rule and between real people, too—so he has to worry about that. He has to be afraid to walk around New York freely. I was like, ‘Here it is. You’ve gotten everything you wanted, and now you’re a prisoner of your own fame.’ That’s sad to me that you have to walk around in a bulletproof vest after you’ve sold 20 million records. So, the point being, what I’m interested in is the thing under the thing. You can think you know where he was at when he said those raps, but I saw another level of it personally, and I found it sad.” Jay-Z added.
Read: Jay-Z wrote “Still D.R.E.” For Dr. Dre, the lead single off Dr. Dre’s “2001” album
Read: Eminem created his alter ego Slim Shady while sitting on the toilet
According to Empire’s co-creator Danny Strong, they based the hit TV series’ fictional character Lucious Lyon loosely on billionaire Jay Z. The show pulls from Jay Z’s past criminal life and his rise to stardom through hip-hop and the music industry.
Danny Strong revealed this in an interview with Sway on Sway in the Morning saying,
“The Jay-Z story, which very much inspired Lucious Lyon, certain elements of Lucious Lyon, was that story,” Strong responded. “For me the story of people who have some sort of criminal past, or gangster past are not limited to black culture. … Our goal is to tell a great story, and to do the best show we can. You can cross the line and just be totally inappropriate, but we’re not doing that. … You know, Joe Kennedy too, is another (person who rose to power from a criminal past).”
In order to clear the sample for his smash hit “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)” which was produced by The 45 King, Jay-Z lied to the Annie original songwriters, Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin in a letter talking about how much the TV version of Annie meant to him growing up because he had won an essay-writing contest and saw Annie on Broadway as a kid. Both ended up being a lie. He only watched it on TV.
“I wrote a letter about how much Annie meant to me growing up and how I went to a Broadway play — which was an exaggeration. “I saw it on TV. It was a bad lie … for a good reason.” Jay-Z told the NPR in a 2010 interview.
Jay-Z also explained how he lied to secure the Annie sample in his 2010 memoir, Decoded.
“We might not all have literally been orphans, but a whole generation of us had basically raised ourselves in the streets. So I decided to write the company a letter myself. I made up this story about how when I was a seventh-grader in Bed-Stuy, our teacher held an essay contest and the three best papers won the writers a trip to the city to see Annie. A lie. I wrote that as kids in Brooklyn we hardly ever came into the city. True. I wrote that from the moment the curtain came up I felt like I understood honey’s story. Of course, I’d never been to see Annie on Broadway. But I had seen the movie on TV. Anyway, they bought it, cleared it, and I had one of my biggest hits.”
“Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)” peaked at number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Read: Jay-Z was the first rapper inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame
Read: Jay-Z’s debut album “Reasonable Doubt” was originally titled “Heir To The Throne”
Read: Jay-Z once bought 100 copies of Nipsey Hussle’s Crenshaw mixtape for $100 a copy
Jay-Z released his sixth studio album “The Blueprint” the same day the tragic event 9/11 happened in New York City on September 11, 2001. Jay Z donated $1 from every ticket sold on The Blueprint album tour to relief groups. The album sold over 426,000 copies first week.
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