JAY-Z rapped his almost four-minute verse on DJ Khaled‘s “GOD DID” in one take, according to his longtime engineer Young Guru.
Hov delivered a masterclass in MCing on the title track from Khaled’s new album that dropped on Friday (August 26), with Guru revealing his amazement about him recording the verse in one go. Despite their long history of working together, Guru had never seen anything like it before.
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“People think I’m still not amazed when he walk in and do these verses,” he told Genius’ Rob Markman and GQ’s Frazier Tharpe. “And this one was different because normally, we’ll sit down, we’ll do a song, three verses, two verses or whatever, and he’ll have a verse and then we’ll figure out what’s next.
“No, he walked in and this was completely, he’s spitting the verse to me. One take. He’s literally asking me, ‘Guru, put the beat on.’ I’m like, ‘Khaled didn’t send me the beat, you didn’t send me the beat. Send me the beat.’ So then he sends me the joint and I started trying to loop it, and he was just like, ‘No, no, no, hit Khaled and get the whole instrumental,’ so he could spit the whole verse.”
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He continued: “I didn’t know he had almost four minutes and how many bars or whatever ready, so I’m just in amazement of watching him do this again at 52 years old. It’s like, I never stop being amazed. That’s why I tweeted ’cause it’s just like, ‘Yo, I don’t really wanna have a conversation after this.'”
The tweet Young Guru referenced saw him praising JAY-Z’s verse weeks before “GOD DID” was released: “HOV is the greatest of all time. This can’t be debated anymore!!!”
On the track, Hov addressed Meek Mill leaving Roc Nation by clearing up suspicions of any issues between them.
DJ Khaled Says JAY-Z Verse On 'God Did' Would Make His Greatest Verses List
“Me and Meek could never beef, I freed that n-gga from a whole bid, Hov did,” he raps on the song. “Next time we have a discussion who the G.O.A.T., you donkeys know this.”
Meek Mill reacted to JAY-Z saying they’ll never beef on Twitter: “Never!!!!!!”
