Jay-Z Admitted He’s Lost ‘a Couple Albums’ Worth of Great Material’ Because of a Writing Method He ‘Wouldn’t Advise’
Jay-Z’s method of songwriting is rather unconventional. The rapper said that when he began working on music as a teenager, he painstakingly wrote down everything that passed through his mind. As he aged, though, he put fewer and fewer words to paper, preferring to rely on memorization instead. He admitted this method has caused some problems for him.
Jay-Z said he has forgotten albums-worth of material
Jay-Z said that when he was first beginning to rap, he wrote everything down in a notebook. He spent hours a day working on his writing.
“Yeah, what happened was I wrote so much in this book, I would sit at my table for hours and hours until my mother made me go to bed. And it was like this — this obsession with words and with writing,” he told NPR. “And as I got further away from that notebook — now as I was on the street, and these ideas would come, I would run into the corner store, the bodega, and grab like, a paper bag or just buy a juice, anything just to get a paper bag.”
When he got home, he would transfer the words from whatever scrap paper he could find to his notebook. Eventually, however, he stopped using the notebook. Instead, he tried to memorize the lyrics as he thought of them.
“And as I got further and further away from home and from the notebook, I had to memorize these rhymes longer and longer and longer — and like, with any exercise, you know, once you train your brain to do that, it becomes a natural occurrence,” he said. “So you know, about the time I got to record my first album — which was, I was 26 — I didn’t need pen to paper. My memory had been trained, you know, just to listen to a song, think of the words, and then just lay them to tape.”
While it has mostly worked for him, he said he wouldn’t advise it to other aspiring artists. Over the years, he has forgotten a portion of his good ideas.
“I’ve lost plenty material; it’s not the best way,” he said, adding, “I wouldn’t advise it. I wouldn’t advise it to anyone. I’ve lost a couple albums’ worth of great material. Well, I thought they were great.”
Jay-Z said he completely forgot the words during an early show
In the earliest stages of his career, Jay-Z taught himself to perform at parties.
“I kind of went through a rock-‘n’-roll stage,” he said. “You know, I was kind of was doing parties and learning to perform.”
The first time he got in front of people, though, he completely forgot what he hoped to perform.
“The first show I ever did, I just forgot the words. I stood there, and I tried to pass the mic to Damon Dash, who I co-founded Roc-A-Fella with,” he said. “I gave him the mic – like, here. He was like man, I don’t rap.”
Beyoncé spoke about how impressive it was to watch him work
Beyoncé witnessed his style of putting a song together when they worked on “Crazy in Love.” She watched as he conjured up his part of the song.
“I knew the song wasn’t complete, because the horns were so old-school, and I thought if a rapper was on it people would give it more of a chance — because rappers can flow over old-school beats and people accept it,” she told Vanity Fair. “So Jay came into the studio, and it could have been 10 minutes, it could have been 2 minutes — he listened to it and recorded this rap without writing anything down. He just sits there and his mouth starts moving silently, and all of a sudden he does this rap.”
She found the way he worked astonishing.
“I have seen him do this many times, but this was like three in the morning,” she said. “He had to be exhausted, I was exhausted. I don’t know how he did this … He rapped on the song and he added a lot to the energy of it. It really completed the song.”
