How A$AP Rocky turned a leftover Jay-Z beat into a platinum song
One of A$AP Rocky‘s biggest early records was actually made for Jay-Z. But the fresh, hungry rapper inside him persuaded Hit-Boy to give him the production and turn it into a platinum record.
During the recording process for his debut album, LONG.LIVE.A$AP, the Harlem rapper, linked up with Hit-Boy in Los Angeles to see what they could come up with in the studio. The producer ran through a bunch of beats for Hov, and Rocky’s attention was immediately drawn to ‘Goldie’.
“I was in L.A. recording with Hit-Boy,” he told Complex. “We was going through some tracks. He was going through some tracks he had made for JAY-Z. He goes, ‘You ever hear this?’ He let me hear it. I go, ‘Let me get that,’ and he let me have that record. I spit to it, and it was like, ‘This beat was made for you.’”
He added, “That’s just how it worked. With ‘Goldie’ I just really wanted to show people a different side of me. I wanted to show them something jiggy. Some tastemaker shit.”
The rest is history. The song served as the first single from the album and went on to be certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. It was one of the first signs of his direction after breaking through with his Live. Love. ASAP mixtape in 2011.
A$AP Rocky mentions JAY-Z’s champagne brand, Ace of Spades, in the first verse of the track, rapping, “Cristal go by the cases, wait hold up that was racist/ I would prefer the Aces, ain’t no different when you taste it.” Rocky suggests he can’t tell the difference between Ace of Spades and Cristal, which caught JAY-Z’s attention. However, the ‘Praise the Lord’ rapper claimed he didn’t even know the company was owned by Jay.
“When I first came out, I’m like, ‘Cristal by the cases, maybe that was racist/ I would prefer the Aces, ain’t no different when you taste it,’” Rocky said on Drink Champs. “Like, I ain’t know Hov — I ain’t know Jay owned Ace of Spades. I ain’t gonna lie, I don’t think he was jacking that.”
He continued, “He saw some lil’ A$AP n-ggas back in the day. He seen like A$AP Bari and them. He called them to the side and was like, ‘Yo, come here. Let me holla at y’all.’ He was like, ‘So, your mans. What’s up with that line?’ ‘Cause I might’ve said some crazy shit like ‘sip Cris and fuck Ace.’ I didn’t know it was owned by [Jay].”
Hit-Boy also reflected on ‘Goldie’ during an interview with Noisey, recalling his reaction to A$AP Rocky knocking out the verses in the studio.
“When ‘Goldie’ came about, A$AP, his people, reached out [and] wanted to just put a session together,” he said. “Finally the times matched up, we got in the studio and I had the track and I’ma just say it, I wanted to save this track for JAY-Z to be honest. But I’m just like, man, he’s a young dude, he fresh, we had a good vibe and I played him the joint and I was like, ‘This is the one.’ There’s no denying.”
He added, “When he got in the booth, he just spazzed on it and did what he did, man, so I’m really proud of that joint. It reminds me of some old school Hip Hop shit, mixed with some newness. Just those drums, you’ve never heard that 808 before, and I’m really proud of that.”