Just Blaze Shows Off Unreleased Music From JAY-Z, Ghostface Killah & More
Photo Credit: Hutton Supancic/Getty Images for SXSW
While sharing a set of photos on Instagram, producer Just Blaze unearthed never-before-heard material from JAY-Z, Madlib and more.
Former Roc-A-Fella producer Just Blaze has opened up the vault. On Tuesday (January 17), Just Blaze, legal name Justin Gregory Smith, unveiled CDs with never-before-heard music from JAY-Z, Ghostface Killah, The Neptunes, a collaboration between Timbaland and Static Major and more.
“Back at the storage cleaning out,” Smith captioned the post. “Found some heavy sessions today. Last slide is a doozy,” he concluded, referencing the late Static Major and music engineer Kamel Abdo, the latter who assisted on unreleased JAY-Z track “Hello Young Lady.”
Smith’s unreleased collection included “Christies” from The Neptunes, “Operator” from a 2002 Pro Tools session with Timbaland and Major which had “3 versions of hooks,” along with 2006 material from Smith and Ghostface Killah dubbed “Missing Audio Files.” Additional works from JAY-Z were also in the haul, with a 2002 CD from the Brooklyn emcee and rap duo M.O.P., along with Hov being featured on a 2007 CD with Madlib, Sleepy Brown, Beanie Sigel, Memphis Bleek and Trey Songz.
Hip-hop fans and peers reveled over the newly discovered collection in the comments section, including JAY-Z’s longtime engineer Young Guru, who wrote, “@justblaze memories!!!!!”
“Imagine how much incredible music has just never been heard…like beats and songs that are sitting somewhere,” Drake wrote. “it’s like the ocean we just don’t know what’s there.” Artists also praising Smith’s post were Sleepy Brown, Rapsody, Miguel, DJ Scratch and DJ Khalil.
While Smith’s CDs have been seen for the first time, the New Jersey native once spoke on JAY-Z’s “Hello Young Lady” being a sequel to 2001 single “Song Cry” from The Blueprint. While on Sway In the Morning in 2013, Smith shared that “Hello Young Lady” almost appeared on both 2003’s The Black Album and 2013’s Magna Carta Holy Grail.
Me and Jay did a song, I think it was from The Black Album, maybe. It was called ‘Hello Young Lady’ and it was kind of like a ‘Song Cry’ part two,” he said. “And the reason we didn’t put it out was because subject matter-wise, it was so close to [‘Song Cry’]. Basically, it was like how ‘Song Cry’ was three verses, these were the next three verses of that same song. But it was so close it was just like, ‘Ah, we already did this. We don’t really need to do it again.’”
He added, “We did revisit that idea right when he first started figuring out what he wanted to do with Magna Carta and he came to see me. We actually did bring that record up. And it was a contender for a day or two…One day I’mma get him to put it out.”
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