In a recent interview with The Urban Daily, Saigon talked about working with Jay-Z while he was still signed to Atlantic Records. According to the Brooklyn rhymer – who is currently gearing up to release his long-awaited debut album The Greatest Story Never Told this February 22 via Fort Knocks Entertainment/Suburban Noize Records – Jay-Z relieved him of a number of beats, including the Just Blaze-produced track that later became 2006’s “Kingdom Come.”
“Jay-Z was jacking for beats baby,” Saigon said. “We were working at Baseline [Studios] and we’re like a close family. Jay would come around, pop up every now and again and me and Just [Blaze] were in there working hard. Just would give me a gang of beats at a time and every now and again one would come up missing. One I’d write to or really loved then the next thing you know, there’d be a big meeting and they’d say, ‘Sai, we need to talk to you. You know that beat we had? The one you were loving? Yeah, big homie’s got that now.’ And you know big homie’s Jay-Z. He did that to me about three or four times. ‘Kingdom Come’ was mine.”
Although Hov may have taken “Kingdom Come” from the Yardfather, he returned the favor by lacing him with his verse the “Come On Baby” remix free of charge. Saigon explains that Jay had initially taken that beat from him as well, but ultimately gave it back with his already recorded verse left in tact.
“‘Come On Baby’ was mine, he took it, did his thing to it and then gave it back because he didn’t want to use it,” he explained. “He gave it back to me but was like, ‘You can keep the verse I left on there.’ So I was like cool, you know what I mean? That was a big homie move because you can’t buy a Jay-Z verse. You can’t go to Jay-Z and say, ‘Hey, we got a hundred thousand for you to get on the record.’ He’d wipe his ass with a hundred thousand dollars. That’s why he said that line, ‘You wanna be in the public, send your budget,’ that means your whole recording budget. That means if you get him, there’s no money for producers, studio time, nothing. Send your budget.”
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The full interview can be seen below.
