The UK rapper who turned down a Jay-Z collaboration: “I felt proper bad”
For many, a Jay-Z collaboration is a bucket list moment—a solidification of worth as a rapper, no matter what they might have achieved before it—a childhood dream becoming a reality. This may have been the case for a UK artist, but it didn’t stop them from turning Hov down.
Stormzy once revealed that he rejected working Jay-Z in person. The London MC was in the studio with Ed Sheeran and Jay, intending to make a song. They were all writing lyrics for ‘Take Me Back to London’, a song that appeared on Ed’s No.6 Collaborations Project. Due to the London theme, Jay was looking to add some content about the UK capital to his verse and asked for a few tips to make him sound more at home.
“Before that, I loved ‘Take Me Back To London’ because I thought it was just going to be me and Ed,” he said on The Jonathan Ross Show. “Then Ed was like, ‘Jay is getting on it.’ We got into the studio and we were writing for this song and then he just stops the music and he said, ‘Tell me about London, I need some inspiration.’”
The ‘Vossi Bop’ rapper said they had a “powerful, beautiful” conversation, “talking about everything from black culture, community [to] music, his journey, my journey.” He called it the greatest conversation of his life, but there was one problem: he didn’t think Jay-Z worked on the track. So, he was honest about his opinion.
“At the end, he’s smiling, we were probably talking for an hour and he goes, ‘So what do you think of the song?’” Stormzy said. “I was like, ‘I love this song but you being on the song changes everything. If you didn’t ask me this, I would have just written my verse and we would have done it and I would have never questioned it, but now that you’ve asked me, no.’”
He added, “I was like, ‘I know how it goes, Mr Z. You are the most brilliant, busy man and I will probably never get this opportunity ever again but hand on my heart, I don’t think this is the right song for us. I don’t know why I’m saying this to you but this is not the song’”.
Stormzy explained that Jay-Z was stunned by what he was hearing, but claimed he earned his respect. “I felt proper bad because I was like, ‘You’re saying no to Jay-Z!’” he said. “Jay-Z was super proud and super shocked and taken aback by the fact that this kid told him. He fully understood… He couldn’t believe that I did it.”
Whether or not Stormzy was right about Hov not being on ‘Take Me Back to London’ will remain a mystery. But the song reached number one on the UK Singles Chart, so he wasn’t wrong about it being successful without him. Maybe he’ll get that Hov collaboration at another point in his career, so he doesn’t have to live with that regret.