The iconic verse Kanye West told Rick Ross to rewrite: “Rozay ain’t used to that”
Rick Ross has collaborated with Kanye West many times throughout his career, including two features on Ye’s classic 2010 album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. As well as the epic ‘Monster’ alongside Jay-Z, Nicki Minaj and Bon Iver, Rozay had a standout moment on ‘Devil in a New Dress’.
Considered one of the best verses of his career, Rick Ross provided a final verse of luxury, touching on expensive jewellery, limousines and tuxedos. He raps on the song, “Lookin’ at my bitch, I bet she give your ass a bone/ Lookin’ at my wrist, it’ll turn your ass to stone/ Stretch limousine, sipping rosé all alone/ Double-headed monster with a mind of his own.”
However, there was more to the process than Rick Ross simply submitting his verse. To his surprise, Kanye West requested him to redo his entire lyrics from scratch. “Soon as I heard the beat, I wrote a verse right there,” he said on HBO’s The Shop. “The verse you heard ain’t what it was [when it was finished]. I wrote two to three verses right then just to let Kanye hear the vibe.”
He continued, “This the first time somebody ever said Rozay, ‘I know you, you could go harder.’ Rozay ain’t used to that. He comes back like, ‘Rozay, you know I know you. This verse right here… And I looked at him like, ‘What? I could what?’”
Rick Ross thought the way Kanye West was talking to him was “crazy”, with the Chicago rapper challenging him to go that little further. “’Don’t even finish that,’” he recalled Ye telling him. “’Just chill, come back and holla at me.’ I said, ‘This n*gga crazy,’ and I went back in immediately.
“Without a doubt, he’s most definitely gonna challenge you. To me, to be great and make sure that everybody that’s in the room with you [is] great, you have to make sure that you challenge and not just accept.”
‘Devil in a New Dress’ was produced by B!nk and Mike Dean, with Kanye West hearing the beat for the first time in Hawaii. Recalling Kanye being immediately intrigued by the instrumental, B!nk told DJBooth, “He hopped right in the booth and the first thing he said was, ‘I love it though,’ and the first line he came up with was, ‘She love Jesus but she learned a lot from Satan.’” During the recording process, the song was actually known as ‘Magic Hour’.
Rick Ross revealed that he recorded his verse just one day before it needed to be turned in for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. “I got a call, they wanted me to be a part of that record,” he said to MTV. “It was actually the last day before Kanye had to turn the record in, and I think that pressure just made it that much more special to me.”
He added, “So I just sat there, approached the record openly and as straightforward as I could. When I laid the verse, 30 minutes later, I was extremely happy. I sent it to him, and he was too. I think it was one of the dopest verses I did this year.”