Jay-Z's incredible verse on DJ Khaled's God Did has remained a talking point since the album's release on Friday. As people closest to Hov hyped up his performance as one of his best to date, Jay-Z didn't disappoint in his nearly 4-minute verse. He reflected on the viral moment on the red carpet when he ran into Kelly Rowland, detailed turning "cocaina into champagne," and cleared the air on any speculation that he and Meek Mill have friction.
During an interview with Genius's Rob Markman and GQ's Frazier Thorpe, Jay's long-time engineer and confidant, Young Guru, recounted the session that turned into this widely discussed moment in pop culture.
“People think I’m still not amazed when he walk in and do these verses. And 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," he explained, before recalling Jay deliver the entire verse in one take. "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.”
However, Guru wasn't aware of what Jay-Z had in mind when he approached the record. He said he watched in amazement as Jay came through with the nearly 4-minute long verse.
"I didn’t know he had almost four minutes and how many bars or whatever ready, so I’m just in amazement of watching him do this again at 52 years old. It’s like, I never stop being amazed," he added. "That’s why I tweeted ’cause it’s just like, ‘Yo, I don’t really wanna have a conversation after this.'"
Earlier this summer, Guru declared Jay-Z the greatest rapper of all time on Twitter after Khaled started teasing the collab. "HOV is the greatest of all time. This can’t be debated anymore!!!” He wrote.
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