The REAL Making of The Black Album w/ Guru &..

Guru & Kyambo “Hip Hop” Joshua stopped by Rory & Mal‘s podcast to detail the making of Jay Z’s The Black Album, as it’s 18th year anniversary rolls by.

This is quite literally a piece of Hip-Hop history!

The intricacies Guru & “Hop” get into could be seen as a continuation of the documentary that accompanied the album, Fade To Black.

In the episode, the pair reveal that some of Jay Z’s The Blueprint‘s production was originally meant for Beanie Sigel. Sample clearances and scheduling lead to Bean’s leaving those beats on the cutting room floor, for Jay to later pick up as part of his 2001 album.

Another reveal came in the form of Kanye West. According to Hop & Guru, Kanye West moved to New Jersey to be closer to Baseline Studios, because Just Blaze was a mainstay and would get beats heard by artists faster. Before the move, Ye would mail his beats to the studio. Quite arcaic stuff.

One more unveiling is the fact that Scott Storch and Lil Jon submitted beats for Jay’s albums, before they were super-producers. The two must’ve been memorable, because Guru recalled it like it was yesterday. He says they ultimately didn’t make the cut because they were “early” in the development of their sound.

Interestingly enough, Mal himself sat in on The Black Album sessions as a child. He recalls Jigga doing his infamous reignman like style of “writing” verses and picking beats.

If you’ve been living under stone, Mal is Hip Hop’s brother (who was Kanye’s non-related brother) and they’re both younger siblings to 1/3 of Rocafella‘s Holy Trinity, Kareem “Biggs” Burke.

Any casual Joe Budden Podcast fan has endured endless jokes about Mal starting Rocafella records and such. They generally over play his role in the label as a run-on. Pretty funny material.