Just Blaze says that he originally created the beat for Jay-Z’s “Girls, Girls, Girls” with Ghostface Killah in mind and detailed how the track ended up on The Blueprint during a recent appearance on People’s Party With Talib Kweli. The iconic song features Biz Markie, Slick Rick, and Q-Tip.
“The Blueprint is kind the culmination of what we were tryna figure out on [The Dynasty: Roc La Familia] and [Beanie Sigel‘s] The Reason,” he explained, as noted by HipHopDX. “Hip-Hop [Kyambo Joshua] will tell you himself, Ghostface was his favorite rapper. So we were all definitely influenced by Supreme Clientele, specifically. When we were in that chamber, I had actually made ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’ for Ghost; about a year and a half before The Blueprint was ever a thought, that beat was already done.”
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Just Blaze continued to say that once the overall tone of the album was settled on, he realized that the beat for “Girls, Girls, Girls” would be perfect for the tracklist.
He went on: “I remember Jay walking into the studio like, ‘Yo, I just got the CD from Ye, let’s go.’ And I’m like, ‘What we doin?’ And he says, ‘We’re back to the soul music.’ So the first thing I think of is that Ghost beat. Ghost is my brother now. At the time, I didn’t have the link to Ghost. So, I could hold out and pray that I meet Ghost one day; or this is the chamber that Jay’s in right now, boom.”
The Blueprint was released on September 11, 2001 and was instantly a hit. The project went on to be selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Recording Registry for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” in 2019.
Check out Just Blaze’s appearance on People’s Party With Talib Kweli below.
[Via]