Jay-Z Wrote the First Verse of 99 Problems in His Head in 30 Minutes

Rick Rubin, the veteran record producer, had just played the beat. Jay-Z, the rapper, did not reach for a pen or a notebook. He said to keep looping it, over and over, and went to sit at the far end of the studio.

The track kept playing. Rubin talked with the engineer. From his corner, Jay-Z was mostly silent, sometimes mumbling or humming under the music. After a while Rubin almost forgot he was there.

What Rubin was watching was Jay-Z's entire writing process for one of his most famous songs. The beat was for "99 Problems," the track Rubin made for The Black Album, the record Jay-Z then planned as his final album before retirement. Jay-Z had invited 10 admired producers to each contribute one song with him.

Most rappers Rubin had worked with spent a long time writing lyrics down. He had never seen Jay-Z write lyrics at all. Jay-Z built the verse in his head while the music looped.

After 20 or 30 minutes, Jay-Z stood up and said he had it. He ran into the vocal room and performed the whole first verse from memory, with nothing written down. He recorded about three takes.

Each version used identical lyrics, but the rhythm was different. Rubin later compared it to a saxophone player running through a solo, with the emphasis landing in different places and one word standing out in one take and slipping past in the next. Jay-Z came back in, listened to the takes, and picked one. "Oh, yeah, I think the second one's good."

Then he did it again. He told them to keep playing the beat, returned to his seat away from the console, and started working on the next verse in his head. About a half hour later, he was ready to record again.

Rubin calls it a real and unusual skill. A rock verse might have four lines, easy to hold in memory, but a rap verse is long and complicated. Jay-Z just remembered it.