How Did JAY-Z’s ‘4:44’ Album Came to Be? The Record’s Producer Explains…
In case you haven’t heard, JAY-Z dropped his new album 4:44, and the world is going crazy over it (not a surprise, he’s a genius!). The album is said to be a response to his wife Beyonce’s album Lemonade.
4:44’s producer No I.D. (real name Dion Wilson) was the one and only producer on the album — a rarity these days. In an interview with New York Times, No I.D. opened up about the experience, including whether or not Beyonce gave input in the making of the album. Apparently, she was “heavily involved in the production.”
“I always call Bey our de facto A&R. Pillow talk is the strongest conversation on the planet. Every song has to get past her ears, in my eyes,” No I.D. said. “She came by a lot and played a good part in helping us get over hurdles on certain records. Of course she’s genius-level with that.”
He also wanted to have a youth-driven voice to it.
“A couple times we said, ‘Has there been anyone in any genre that really tapped into themselves on a new level at that age?’ It’s really kind of unheard-of across the board, not just in rap,” he said. “But there are certain cheat codes that are available now—you have streaming, and the ability to listen to everything that ever happened.”
He continued: “We could gauge: Why does Adele do this? Why did Led Zeppelin do this? Why did Jimi Hendrix do this? What are the common threads? Honesty, vulnerability, pain—these are things that always supersede the trends of the day.”
As far as how JAY-Z’s mother ended up coming out on the album in a song called “Smile,” No I.D. explained that JAY-Z “gave me the Stevie [Wonder] song, ‘Love’s in Need of Love Today,’ on the playlist and I made a piece of music. I just typed an email about smiling no matter what.”
“[Jay] immediately went in and wrote these words,” he said. “When he got to that part about his mom — [‘Mama had four kids, but she’s a lesbian/had to pretend so long that she’s a thespian’]—I immediately knew this was way deeper than anything I was saying. He had that line and he ended up playing it for his mom. That’s where he can tell the rest of the story.”