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Listening to the loop
Producer Rick Rubin had made the beat for 99 Problems and played it for Jay-Z, who asked for it to keep playing over and over. He sat in the back of the room while the track looped, so quiet that Rubin nearly forgot he was there. Now and then a mumble or a hum carried across the room.
Three takes
After twenty or thirty minutes, Jay-Z announced that he had it and recorded the entire first verse. He did about three takes with the same words every time and a different cadence in each, like a saxophonist who knows the solo but never plays it the same way twice. One word might be featured in one version and slide by in the next.
Every other rapper the producer had worked with spent a lot of time writing lyrics, and a rap song carries far more words than the four lines of a typical rock verse. Jay-Z listened back, picked the second take, and sat down to loop the beat again. About half an hour later he was ready for the next verse.
How can a rapper hold a verse without writing it?
A looping beat gives a fixed rhythmic grid, so each line can be placed against the same bars on every pass. Repeating the loop lets the words and the pattern of stresses settle together in memory. The Notorious B.I.G. is widely reported to have worked the same way, composing verses in his head before stepping to the microphone. The method is old in the broader oral tradition too, where long poems were carried in memory for generations.
Why does a rapper's cadence change between takes?
Cadence is where each syllable lands against the beat, and rappers can shift it without changing a single word. Moving a word a fraction earlier or later changes which part of the line the ear emphasizes. Musicians often call the spot just behind or ahead of the beat the pocket, and small moves around it change the feel. Jazz players treat a written melody the same way, which is why two recordings of the same tune can sound so different.
Where did the 99 Problems hook come from?
The title and the central line borrow from a 1993 song of the same name by Ice-T on his album Home Invasion. Jay-Z released his version in 2003 on The Black Album, with Rick Rubin producing. His verses tell three separate stories rather than repeating one theme. The song won a Grammy for Best Rap Song.
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