Jay’s longtime producer called the one-go verse a “bonus level of talent.”
For any of those of you out there who still doubt that Jay-Z recorded his epic, four-minute verse on DJ Khaled‘s “God Did” in one take, Jigga’s longtime engineer, Young Guru, has the receipts. On Sunday (Sept. 4), Guru posted a long message on Instagram along with two pics from the sessions to prove his point.
“This is first and last time I’m gonna do this. I could care less if you believe me when I say that he did this @djkhaled verse in one take,” Guru wrote alongside of a picture of him at the mixing console with Jay chilling in the background enjoying a drink as YG does works his magic.
“Let’s be clear for the youth. Doing a song in one take is just a bonus of the level of talent. The song is what is important. You have to realize how much work is done before he goes in the booth,” he added. The second snap appears to show Jay’s completed vocal tracks and in his explainer, Young Guru preempted any additional doubts about what it takes to be one and done.
“Questions like, ‘are these the right words,’ ‘are you going in the right direction,’ ‘is this the best flow’ are all answered and addressed mentally way before you record. Then you say the verse over and over in the control room to memorialize it,” he explained. “Does jay do EVERY verse in one take? No. But has he done A LOT of verses in one take? Hell yes!!! I have no reason to [lie]! Look at the zoom in of the screen. There are no chops or breaks in that audio. This ‘I don’t believe you unless I see it’ thing is foreign to me. So here is your proof. It doesn’t matter if you believed me…..God Did!!!”
The ever-voluble Khaled also weighed in, writing in comments, “THIS GOD DID! THIS HOV DID!
GURU DID!!!!!!”
The chatter about Jay’s verse first started bubbling last week when Young Guru first discussed his amazement during the session in an interview in which he said, “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.”
Check out Guru’s post below.