Jermaine Dupri has acknowledged that he introduced JAY-Z to No I.D. ten years before the two of them collaborated on 4:44.
JD spoke about bringing No I.D. to the studio while working on Hov’s 2007 album American Gangster during an appearance with Curren$y, with whom he is preparing a joint project.
“I actually introduced No I.D. to JAY-Z,” the So So Def hitmaker said. “I took him with me to that session. When I was doing ‘Fallen,’ I took No I.D. with me. They didn’t even know each other. While I was making that beat, he was in the corner with his headphones on making another beat.
“Hov was like, ‘What you got?’ He was asking everybody around — there were a bunch of producers in the studio. And I was like, ‘He got some shit. I’m telling you, watch.’ He plugged that shit up, and next thing you know they made a whole album together!”
Although No I.D. produced “All Around the World” from The Blueprint 2 and mentored Kanye West early in his career, Dupri remarked that this was the “first time that they truly got a chance to genuinely connect like that” with JAY-Z.
The story of JAY-Z and No I.D. started then, to use Mr. West’s words. In addition to scoring songs like “D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune),” “Run This Town,” “Primetime,” and “Holy Grail,” the Chicago native also produced the American Gangster track “Success,” which featured Nas.