Although his multiplatinum R&B work with the likes of Usher and Mariah Carey usually draw the headlines, Jermaine Dupri says he’s a certified vinyl buff. The So So Def Founder opened up his walk in vinyl collection to Fuse’s cameras and told the stories behind some of his most memorable hits—including the 1998 Jay-Z collaboration, “Money Ain’t A Thang.”
“When I used the ‘Weak At The Knees’ sample, I couldn’t believe nobody had ever used that beat,” JD told Fuse during an interview for the “Crate Diggers” series. “I played it, and I was like, ‘Oh man, I gotta use this! I had an hour before Jay-Z was landing, and I was going to pick Jay-Z up from the airport…I was listening to [‘Can’t Knock The Hustle’] when he was saying, ‘Deep in the South kicking up top game / Bouncing on the highway switching four lanes / Screaming through the sunroof money ain’t a thang…’”
Dupri added that the impromptu listening session gave him the inspiration to sample Jay-Z’s voice on a track that Jay would also appear on. He noted that it was one of the first times that an artist sampled their own lines on one of their songs.
While the song itself doesn’t appear in the list of Jay-Z or Dupri’s most commercially successful Billboard singles, it can be found on JD’s certified platinum album, Jermaine Dupri Presents: Life In 1472 and Jay-Z’s quintuple platinum album, Hard Knock Life, Volume 2. The full “Crate Diggers” interview, which also features JD explaining how he crafted hits for Usher and highlights from his conversation with Michael Jackson, can be seen below.
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