Ever since DJ Khaled dropped his single “GOD DID” featuring Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, JAY-Z, John Legend and Fridayy, there’s been a lot of debate over who had the best verse. Yesterday (Aug. 31) evening, JAY-Z joined the chat on Twitter Spaces to discuss how his lyrics came about.
There’s even been talk about how quickly the New York native was able to get his verse done. “[JAY-Z] walked in … he’s spitting the verse to me. One take,” JAY’s engineer Young Guru said earlier this week. Although JAY-Z later clarified that he went over the words “a couple times,” the “Song Cry” rapper was happy to share the inspiration behind his lyrics. “The thing that makes me most proud of everything, every word I said in that thing was [a] true fact. For me, it’s a challenging thing to do that long. Every bar is just like actual fact,” JAY-Z said.
DJ Khaled, Lenny S. and Rob Markman were also present for the conversation. Markman mentioned JAY’s lyric, “How many billionaires can come from Hov crib? Huh? I count three, me, Ye and Rih. Bron’s a Roc boy, so four, technically.” Just as JAY-Z said every line on his verse was a fact, Markman asked Hov to discuss how he puts those around him in a position to be great. Markman also mentioned Hov and company’s growth, noting that 10 years ago, they were millionaires and are now billionaires.
“Yea, we not gon’ stop. Hip hop is young. We still growing,” JAY said. He spoke about the American dream and how the world tried to tear the culture down, but hip hop continued evolving. “Before it was the American dream. Pull yourself up by the bootstraps and you can make it in America. All these lies that America told us our whole life. And then when we start getting it, they tried to lock us out of it. They started using words like ‘capitalist’ and things like that. I mean, we’ve been called ‘n**ga’ and ‘monkeys’ and s**t. I don’t care. Those words y’all come up with, y’all gotta come up with stronger words,” JAY explained.
One commenter on YouTube said they “[appreciated] the opportunity to hear JAY in casual conversation.” Another loved hearing the “Big Pimpin’” artist give advice: “JAY-Z is a hell of a rapper, but I respect him more as a man and businessman/entrepreneur over all that. Wordplay [and] lyrical scheme has always been on another level.”
“I remember I was 13 years old when I started listening to Hov and I never turned back. I’m now 37 and still to this day I got nothing but love for Hov. I find people don’t want to respect Hov’s craft the way they supposed to but after this track they better. Hov always [speaks] facts on his tracks. Props to the living legend,” one fan wrote.