How Jay-Z ended up on a UK grime classic: “There’s a lost verse”
Jay-Z has never collaborated with a UK rapper on a released song, but it almost happened several times. Lethal Bizzle took the grime scene by storm in 2004 with his debut solo single ‘Pow’, which peaked at number 11 on the UK Singles Chart and won a MOBO Award for Best Single.
The record featured a bunch of East London MCs such as D Double E, Fumin, Napper, Jamakabi, Neeko, Flowdan, Ozzie B, Forcer, Demon and Hotshot. It was recorded after Bizzle’s group, More Fire Crew, were dropped by their label.
Producer Dexplicit assembled the beat in under an hour on FL Studio on a computer set up on the floor. The song is in an eight-bar rally format, with each artist taking turns to rap a short eight-bar verse with no breaks and no chorus.
However, you might not know that Jay-Z recorded a verse for ‘Pow’. In 2006, Hov rapped over the ‘Pow’ instrumental during several dates on his UK tour at the Wembley Arena and Royal Albert Hall with a live orchestra.
Over ‘Pow’, he performed his verse from Memphis Bleek’s 2000 song ‘Is That Your Chick (The Lost Verses)’, which appeared on the Roc-A-Fella rapper’s The Understanding album. Jay even brought Lethal Bizzle on stage to perform alongside him.
Bizzle claims Jay-Z completed his bars for the remix after requesting a new chorus that referenced him. The collaboration was looking likely to happen until Jay allegedly had a falling out with DJ Green Lantern, who was his connection. However, an alleged diss towards another rapper is why it never saw the light of day.
“Do you know he’s done a verse on ‘Pow’?” he told DJ Target on BBC Radio 1Xtra. “There’s a lost verse on ‘Pow’. And after all that happened and he saw the reaction and he saw how big the reaction was, Green Lantern was like, ‘Look, Jay-Z wants you to do a chorus for ‘Pow’ and he’s gonna do a verse.'”
He continued, “I done a chorus like, ‘Pow, it’s that Jay-Z, leader of the R-O-C, pow!’ I done a chorus fully – I sent it to him. He’s like, ‘Yeah, Jay-Z loves it. He loves it. I’m gonna hit you up in a few days.’ Then, some big story came out that him and Jay-Z fell out. I found out he did record it, and apparently, in the verse, he’s dissing someone and he doesn’t want it to come out.”
Lethal Bizzle revealed he befriended Jay’s longtime collaborator, Just Blaze, responsible for classics such as ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’, ‘Song Cry’ and ‘December 4th’, who confirmed the track exists.
“Yo, we’ve been trying,” he said about securing the verse. “Me and Just Blaze have kinda like become friends over the last few years, and Just Blaze said he’s heard it. And I knew he wasn’t lying because he’s told me, ‘You done a chorus right?’ He goes, ‘I’m gonna call Jay-Z right now and hit him up.’ Literally, there’s a Jay-Z verse on ‘Pow’. There is.”