JAY-Z‘s longtime engineer Young Guru has shared the “crazy” story behind the rap legend’s verse on Drake‘s “Talk Up.”
Drizzy dumped 100 gigabytes of previously unreleased content on Tuesday (August 6), including a video of him and producer Noah “40” Shebib anticipating Hov submitting his feature for the Scorpion song in crunch time.
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In the clip, the 6 God strategically weighs his moves knowing that Jigga was performing with Beyoncé on their On the Run II Tour that evening and would have limited time to record.
“I’m only laying down for like two hours while Hov’s doing his show ’cause I don’t want him to hit me and be like, ‘Hey, what do you think of this?’ and I’m not there to respond,” Drizzy tells his team.
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Predicting Hov’s post-show process, he adds: “He’s on stage now. Two hours from now, it’s four o’clock. He’s gonna get off stage, shower, probably have a drink and then set back up with Guru to write and [record]. So that process is gonna be two hours.”
After the release of the footage, Young Guru took to social media to shed more light on the last-minute dash to finish the heavyweight collaboration.
“We might have to do a whole interview about this,” he wrote in a comment on journalist Elliott Wilson‘s Instagram page. “We are on OTR2. Remember I’m the DJ. HOV hit me and simply said ‘set up a studio in the venue’ I’m like ‘what’? But of course I get it done.
“We go out and do a two hour show. Mind you he has to remember every verse from every album. No backing tracks. I’m DJing I can’t miss a cue or [musical director Omar Edwards] would kill me. We finish the show. We go back in the room to finish the verse but the problem is I have an afterparty.”
Guru continued: “I can’t [remember] what city or country in Europe but understand, my parties have been set up months before the tour. The Promotor [sic] waited in parking lot for two hours and I can’t tell him why I’m late.
“By the time HOV finished the internet that we set up from Livenation is gone. Everyone is gone. I had to tether my phone to my computer to send the session to @ovo40 I made it too the club just in time for my set.”
“When y’all hear this work I sometimes wonder if you understand how much goes into it!!!! Classic Nights!!!! And I killed my set lol,” he concluded.
Young Guru responds to Drake’s video about collaborating with JAY-Z by diving into more behind-the-scenes details pic.twitter.com/uGPh9D752E
— HipHopDX (@HipHopDX) August 7, 2024
Drake’s surprise “100 Gigs For Your Headtop” release also includes a number of other highlights including a new song with Young Thug and 21 Savage called “It’s Up.”
The track quickly caused a stir online due to speculation that 21 was jumping into Drizzy’s bitter feud with Kendrick Lamar and taking aim at the Compton native.
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“Made a couple songs think he hot now / Hit his ass up think he ‘Pac now,” he rapped.
However, 21 Savage’s manager Justin “Meezy” Williams quickly shot down the chatter, clarifying in a text to Akademiks that Kendrick was not the intended target of these barbed bars.
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“I talked to 21’s people. 21 is not dissing Kendrick, okay? […] That is not at Kendrick Lamar at all,” Ak said on his Rumble livestream.
The media personality then read out a text from Meezy: “He said, ‘That is definitely no shot at Kendrick.’ He literally said, ‘That shit would make no sense ’cause Kendrick got more than one hit or whatever.’”
