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Artist: Jay-Z
Pick: "Who Shot Ya," verse 1
"Who shot ya?/ Separate the weak from the obsolete/ Hard to creep them Brooklyn streets/ It's on n---a, f--- all that bickering beef/ I can hear sweat trickling down your cheek/ Your heartbeat sound like Sasquatch feet/ Thundering, shaking the concrete/ Finish it, stop, when I foil the plot/ Neighbors call the cops, said they heard mad shots/ Saw me in the drop, three-and-a-quarter/ Slaughter, electrical tape around your daughter/ Old school, new school needs to learn though/ I burn baby burn, like 'Disco Inferno'/ Burn slow like blunts with yayo/ Peel more skins than Idaho potato/ N---as know, the lyrical molesting is taking place/ F---in' with B.I.G., it ain't safe/ I make your skin chafe, rashes on the masses/ Bumps and bruises, blunts and Landcruisers/ Big Poppa smash fools, bash fools/ N---as mad because I know that cash rules ..."
Where to find it: Born Again (1999); Ready to Die: The Remaster (2004)
Why: "You're just as good as your competition around you," Jay said. "You know when someone else pushes you to really step your game up? Like I said, I'm a fan of hip-hop. People know that about me. So my man [Kareem] "Biggs" [Burke] had bought me 'Who Shot Ya' [before it came out]. He brought it to me on 125th Street [in Harlem] like it was a drug deal: He jumps in my car, looks around, puts in 'Who Shot Ya' and then he gets out and says, 'You keep that.' Because he knew I'm a fan of the game. He knew that if I heard 'Who Shot Ya,' it's going to inspire me to make songs even hotter. But that song, it was so crazy. It just had an effect on everybody. The world stopped when he dropped 'Who Shot Ya.' "
"When we did 'Brooklyn's Finest' [from Jay's 1996 LP, Reasonable Doubt], that really perked our relationship," Jay recalled. "After that session, we clicked so much and we would talk every day. I mean, in general, he was just a great guy. He was funny: Just talking to him, you'd laugh.
"One of the highlights, as far as performances, for me was [performing with Big at the Apollo Theater]," Hov added. "The whole balcony was shaking at the top. I actually went to the guy at the soundboard and was like, 'Do you see that? Is everybody safe?' I was scared, I didn't want anybody to get hurt — I was like, 'Is that supposed to do that?' He said, 'Yeah, it gives, so it won't crack.' Can you imagine that?"
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