Jay-Z Recalls Hearing the Notorious B.I.G.’s “Who Shot Ya” For The First Time 

Jay-Z revealed his reaction to hearing the Notorious B.I.G.’s “Who Shot Ya” from his 1994 debut album Ready To Die.  

The Roc Nation boss spoke during TIDAL’s “A Toast To Biggie” Twitter Spaces conversation, celebrating Biggie’s 50th birthday. Jay-Z said the song was so good that it inspired him to write four songs later that same night.  

“Biggs gave me the ‘Who Shot Ya’ CD — he called me like it was like we had some kind of beef or something,” Jay-Z explained. “He was like, ‘yo meet me on 120th right now.’ I jump in my car, I’m heavy. I’m like, ‘what’s going on with Biggs?’ I mean, I fly up there. And I get out my car and get in his car and he plays the song and he was like, ‘yeah, you keep the uh,’ it was a cassette tape actually. He was like, ‘yeah you keep that.’” 

Jay-Z Was Pushed To Write New Music

According to Hov, he was so inspired by the track that he wrote four songs that night. However, he says his cuts were not as good as “Who Shot Ya.” 

“I wrote like four songs that night,” Jay-Z continued. “None of them was as good as ‘Who Shot Ya’ but it was still like four songs. It was just, again it was that friendly competition like just trying to push each other to be the best.” 

Diddy also chimed in on the conversation hosted by Elliot Wilson. He gave the legendary rapper his flowers and said Hov “filled” the shoes left behind after Biggie’s death in 1997.  

“You came in and we definitely give thanks,” Diddy told Jay-Z. “You definitely came, and I just know how much Big really looked up to Jay. They looked up to each other. That is crazy you had to step into the shoes of two people. That’s all it was was those two people. They had things on lock.” 

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