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Grand Finale:
This is it like Kenny Loggins. Enjoy y'all weekend. Any more cracks about my better half and I'm coming to you geeks' houses and smash your HP computers over y'all heads. And then I'm gonna rip y'all tonsils out. Real talk: Govern yourselves accordingly.

Jay on Memorizing Rhymes:
"I had backlog and shit. [Laughs] Yeah, now fuck it. I would put ideas in my Blackberry. Like I try to put quotes and shit, I had a shit called 'quotes' and I'd just try to put quotes or whatever…I just had so much, you know, cause like for me, my albums is my diary. It gave me a chance to download every year. It was like my year in review. And I missed those for a couple years."

Jay on Working with Coldplay's Chris Martin
"Yeah, it's the last song on the album. It's called 'Beach Chair.' And it's like one of my favorite songs. He [Chris] just sent these chords, I mean these shits is so crazy. I'm a have Dre do the drums over. But the subject matter of the song is almost I guess it's almost talking to your unborn kid. One of the lines is like, 'I got demons in past/So I got daughters on the way/If the prophecies correct/Then the child shall have to pay/For the sins of the father/So I barter my tomorrows/Against my yesterdays/And hopefully she'll be ok/And when I'm no longer here/To shade her face from the gray/I give her my share of Carol's Daughter/And a new beach chair.' All the joints end with something like that."

Jay on Problems with DMX at Def Jam
"DMX is a big guy, so…We came up together. We have a rich history. I think other things contributed to that also. I did what I had to do. I went in—got him paid for the work he did and gave him his work back. Everything. No one's doing that. No one's paying for something and then giving it away, not those numbers. So, I did the right thing and I can sleep good at night. No matter what he goes around and says, it's whatever. I see that as something that he has to overcome."

Jay on Live Show Prowess
"I tour between albums. That's 18,000 people last night, there may be 50,000 tomorrow. Every word. Fuckin' Scotland. That's different type of shit. I enjoy it. It's a rush. Then when you get to a level of doing shows, the other rush is trying to beat the other show. You really just start trying to make epic joint after epic joint after epic joint. Once you hit arenas, it ain't the same. You can't play it like you play clubs. You try to walk into an arena with a bulletproof vest on with the same show you did at club Speed, it don't work. Now you're dealing with 16,000 people. Even at 5,000 it's gonna sound light. So, you gotta have big records. A following, too.

"When you play 'PSA,' there's no video for that. There's no video for 'You Don't Know' or 'Heart of the City.' These are some of the biggest records in the concert and that comes with the following and preparation. It costs a lot to make that show look effortless. You get to a point where, if you getting a $100,000, you put $10,000 into a show. Whatever you got to do to make the show look great. Going on tour, what's the sense? In order to put on a good show you gotta spend. You get the fuckin' LCD screens that are so bright and look like water. You gotta get the best sound and light guys. You gotta treat it like the rock guys treat it. It's part of your craft. You gotta treat it like the studio, making the album. I got into the mindset that every aspect of my show has got to be the best. You gotta stay on par with your peers in the game. You don't wanna go to a show and they're just blowing you off the stage. That ain't good for your career either. It's all part of being a performer."

Jay on Career Ups and Downs
"You gotta be fluid, man. Everything will work. I'm fearless. I'll try anything. I'll make a fuckin' song with Annie. I'm not afraid to fail. I'll make a record off of a Tupac record, where everybody knows we weren't the best of friends. You know? And if it doesn't work, then I'll fix it. I'm not delusional. I knew the Puffy Tour wasn't working and I knew I gotta get off that. I knew putting out 'Sunshine' wasn't working so it's time to put out Streets Is Watching. It's time to stick with what I do. You gotta figure, when I came off Reasonable Doubt, I believed I had made the best album I could ever make. And it didn't sell the way things were selling at that time and I was like, Fuck! I'm just coming into the business. I'm supposed to be like, 'Fuck it, I'ma stay down.' But I'm like, 'I gave these niggas what they want…' Now I'm going back and I'll never change. I know how to make records, I know how to make songs, but I'm gonna do what I want to do. I'm never following anyone else and I'm never not doing something that I wanna do because of what people might say. You gotta be fearless in that aspect. That's the only way.

"Gotta be fluid. I got that from Bruce Lee. It's like water. Water is fluid. You pour it in a cup it takes the shape of the cup, you pour it in a teapot it takes the shape of the teapot. You gotta be able to change."

Jay on Blueprint 2, baby
"That wasn't my fault. I ain't taking that one. I didn't want to make a double album. I was making so much music, the guys around me were like, 'Yo, make a double album.' And that's me being diplomatic about it. It's not a dictatorship around me and my friends. If everybody is saying it, then let's do it. I'll roll with that. That was the case. If you do the backstory with Guru and Hip-Hop, my whole trustee…But at the same time, Hip-Hop gave me the title for 'Big Pimpin'.' Of course, it sold 4 million albums so I guess…Everyone would love to fail like that. It failed to me because I want the hearts."

Jay on Reuniting with R. Kelly
"It's something that the people wanted. And in a way, to be perfectly honest, he went through that shit, and I backed away from it, like, 'Yo, this is music. You got a real situation, handle it.' I don't know how he took it, but to me it's serious. That's like life altering, legacy—everything. You could get locked up. 'You gotta take care of that. Fuck this album. Don't shoot no videos, we ain't going on tour,' that's what I said. 'You gotta take care of that, man.'

"I think the fallout was people around him. I wouldn't be the same person if I didn't have a good team of people around me. If someone is always telling you that everything is okay, you wouldn't have your feet on the ground anymore. You start losing a sense of reality. When you get a real person around you, telling you real shit, you take it a different way. My intentions was to have the best tour ever. I wanna have the best show. I'm not gonna sabotage R. Kelly with no lights. Why go out with him? I don't need to stand on nobody's shoulders. I'm a made man. I made myself. I don't have to stand on R. Kelly's shoulder to make myself look better. I was who I was before I got to you. I wasn't a new nigga. So, obviously I respect what you do and you're great at what you do and I'm great at what I do too.

"I just felt that if you make that accusation that I'm sabotaging your lights, that must mean that I'm trying to hurt your career to make me look good. I don't wanna do that, I'm a competitor. People gotta realize that too. I don't wanna beat somebody when they're hurt or injured. I want everybody at their full strength. It wasn't like that with us. It wasn't like I was on before and then he went on. There was a friendly competition between us, always. If five people go out, you gonna want the best show or you're not doing your job. If I'm co-headling the tour I'm trying to wipe you off the stage and I want you to fight back. I wanna see some ill shit. I wanna be like,' Oh shit did you see that? It was crazy!' That's the best tour to me. But it wasn't like that with us."

Jay on Changing from His Quick-Tongued Rhyme Style
"It came from being on the streets, living. In the beginning, I was a kid. I didn't have any real experience to base my story off but technical shit. I was under a guy who was technically good. My shit was to technically be the best. Do couplets that niggas couldn't do and come up with concepts that were different. Then I lived life. When I started living life, it became more about the shit I was doing.

"Although I still maintained the flow and technique on every song, that was apart of me, it wasn't the majority. Instead of being 90% of the formula, it became 20%. The style and how I said it played less of a role and what I was saying became the leader and forerunner.

"It was ahead of its time, but not really. When Das Efx did it, I knew it was hope. They had the shit—it was tracks. They used the right tracks. I remember hearing it and thinking it was great. The last one of it's kind was 'Can I Get Open.' I had the Karl Kani shit on. If you looked at my clothes you could see I was out of there. 'Oh, this nigga's on the street now, it's over.' I was gone."

Jay on Joe Budden
"I don't have Joe Budden's album in my hand. I try to be diplomatic about it. You're trying to make the best product. I'm an artist, I understand. I don't have Joe Budden's album. It doesn't make sense, why would I not put it out if it's ready?"

Jay on His Reference to Memphis Bleek on Kanye's Album
"That's my fuckin' kid, you know…That's my little brother. How can you take it…He knows where I'm coming from, he's my little brother. I said he doesn't have to but he's going to for him. Of course, for him, he's going to keep going. That's saying I love you. He's not trying to chill."

Jay on Being the Throwback Killer
"It started looking like a uniform. It started feeling racist. [NBA Commissioner] David Stern talks to me about that every time I see him. He tells the story, 'You know this fuckin' guy right here? He ruined my fuckin' jersey business.' Every single time.

Look for the full story in the December 2006 issue, on stands now!

Go to the next page for more behind-the-scenes at the making of Kingdom Come.

Excuse Me Hov:
It's the pivotal moment in any Jay-Z interview when the media meddler tries to get him to say anything about Beyonce. Mind you when I sat with Jay back in Paris I had no knowledge of the song "Lost Ones" and the second verse. Still after about an hour and a half of back-and-forth banter I dove in. And hey, I got a lil' sumthin', lil' sumthin' for the ladies (You know the females are the backbone of the xxlmag viewership. True story.) Also included here is the one question I hit him with about the infamous Carmen Bryan from XXL DVD fame. I was too shook to follow-up.

Anyway, on Friday I'm gonna post the final loose ends from my exhaustive Hova coverage and then that's it. I promise. I'm through milking this Jay content for all its worth. Somebody tell Game to holla at us. West, west, y'all.

Jay on B

XXL: On a new song, "Beach Chair" you talk about leaving it all to your unborn child, when are you gonna settle down?

Jay-Z: I'm not ready yet. I'm still moving. I still got things to accomplish. The worst shit is to be too busy and miss all your kids' firsts. First walk, first school, all that shit. You're not gonna be a bum, you wanna at least be in the state.

XXL: You made it cool in hip-hop to have a girlfriend.

Jay: I only made it cool to say it. Niggas already had girlfriends. They just didn't wanna say it. I didn't claim it, they just knew what it was.

XXL: But you're protective of it though, which is the cool thing. I mean, your private life should stay private.

Jay: The only time your relationship means anything to people that don't give a shit about you, is when you get together, have a baby or break-up. All the in-between is bullshit to cause something else to happen. They're trying to fuck your shit up. Why even feed into the gossip?

XXL: Still the longevity of the relationship took away the secrecy of it. Now it's out there, do you feel like it has affected you?

Jay: I'm not lying about it, I just talk around it or don't discuss it at all. I'm not rude about. I could just be like, "Shut the fuck up."

XXL: It must be a trip though with all the attention. The Paparazzi wolves is out.

Jay: It's part of the game. No regrets. I love it. If you don't have that negative aspect to fend off, then how do you do it? Something to fight against.

Jay on Nas' BM

XXL: Now that Carmen is making a book, do you feel like you brought her out in a way?

Jay-Z: I think Superhead brought her out. To be honest, she seen the Oprah interview and the New York Times, I think there's going to be eleven
more books. Expect it. If I tell you chicken got grease then get a napkin. It's a copycat… It works. 'Oh shit it worked! I got some stories.'

Look for the full story in the December 2006 issue, on stands now!

Go to the next page for more behind-the-scenes at the making of Kingdom Come.

Pac's Life:
If you think Jay-Z was gonna take Mr. Shakur's Makaveli jabs laying down, y'all got another thing coming. Here Hova reveals for the first time that he had a diss song ready to go until real life drama tragically replaced rap music beef.

Jay-Z:
"I reference Jordan because he had similar stories. He said that he felt cheated when he got to the league and Larry Bird and Magic were leaving. I feel like that. I be like, "Damn, I wonder what it would be like with Big and Pac and everybody here." The worst I've heard was that I wouldn't be who I am if Big and Pac was here. That's God given talent. You can't…

"And that would have been interesting too, how that would've played out with me and Pac. Because I wasn't where I am now. It would've went down, it was a collision course, 100%. I knew some people out West and they told me about the [Makaveli] song. It hadn't dropped yet, but was on the way. I had my record ready. I shelved it out of the utmost respect, but it was coming.

"I performed it one time only at Apollo over 'No Diggity.' No one has that tape. They usually tape the Apollo shows, but they had just stopped taping for some reason. We tried to find the tape. It's 2,000 people that know about it. I did two verses. It's the truth, that's the best shit. It's so liberating, when you say what the fuck you wanna say."

Look for the full story in the December 2006 issue, on stands now!

Go to the next page for more behind-the-scenes at the making of Kingdom Come.

B.I. Vs Friendship:
Jay-Z speaks on differences with former partner Damon Dash and the perception that he’s not a real businessman.

XXL: What's goin' on with Roc-A-Wear?

Jay-Z: The first thing I did when I got over to Roc-A-Wear was to free up the designers. Free 'em up. Make 'em do what you want, you know—you like that? You guys think that's cool? Let's do that, you know, ask the room one time, hey…I mean, I just started being in the ads. Going since '99, I wasn't in no ads for five years, know what I'm sayin'? That speaks to the clothing. The clothing is good. Anything I align myself with, I try, and I would love for it to be an extension of myself.

XXL: But in terms of Roc-A-Wear, it always appeared that Dame was more involved than you were. Like it was more his passion than yours.

Jay-Z: Yeah, Dame was a negotiator and he loved the process of dealing with it day-to-day. You know, but my uh, my fingerprint was—is still all on Roc-A-Wear, you know what I'm sayin'? I mean, from the shit that I wear to getting to them to you know, do they fashion pirate shit sometimes. "Oh this is crazy, make this—put this over here." Dame dealt—I mean, even with Roc-A-Fella, you know, he dealt with the more day-to-day thing. I dealt with the overall pace, the tone, like everything that happened in that company, don't believe that it happened without me knowing. And at the end when something—when it starts happening without my input, I put a stop to it. You know what I'm sayin'?

XXL: Your look is saying a lot more than you are right now…

Jay-Z: It really conveys the seriousness of what I'm saying. I speak in a lot of fragmented sentences, I try to get my point across with how serious I am.

XXL: [Laughs]

Jay-Z: I wish the people could see… [Both laugh]

XXL: Do you feel like with Dame's over the top personality and that dynamic y'all created, it's almost like you didn't get your just due as a businessman…

Jay-Z: Right.

XXL: Until you separated yourself out of that triangle in some ways.

Jay-Z: Right, right, but I didn't mind that. I had no problems with that. But I ain't have no problems with it as long as it works. As long as it works. We all play our position, that's what you do. You know, you deal with it day-to-day, and the minutia of the whole shit, I'm cool with that. I'm cool with that. But don't think that you know, like I had—I was just not…

XXL: Chilling. Hanging in the studio.

Jay-Z: Yeah, fuckin' smokin' blunts somewhere. Not knowing what's going on. Wait, "Oh shit I got a check! I got a fuckin' check!" You know what I'm sayin'?

XXL: I think one of the most unfortunate things was the messiness of the break-up. With Roc artists feeling like they had to choose sides.

Jay-Z: Yeah that was a part of it, yeah that part, nobody wants that, you know what I'm sayin'? Nobody wants that. It's just the way it is. That's just like…it just had to be that way. How else could it have been? It couldn't have been no other way.

XXL: Have you found your peace with the decision you made?

Jay-Z: At the end of the day when I look around and I know I'm on the side of right or what I believe is right in my heart… Sometimes you think you're doing right, but you're not. But what you believe to be right in your heart that's your truths. Then certain things happen, that go even further then that, and you know you was right. The way people carry themselves after, it's like "Wow." I wouldn't have did that. [Laughs] A true friend wouldn't have done that.

Look for the full story in the December 2006 issue, on stands now!

Go to the next page for more behind-the-scenes at the making of Kingdom Come.

Growing Up: Jay-Z answers accusations that he's not the same cat from Marcy Projects. Watch yourselves, bloggers!

XXL: You know a lot people are saying things like Jay changed. Jay is not in the hood anymore. He hangs with Chris Martin from Coldplay and it's like, how do you…

Jay-Z: You're supposed to change. You know, doing the same thing over and over is the definition of insane.

XXL: The definition of what?

Jay-Z: Insane.

XXL: [Laughs]

Jay-Z: That's the definition of insane. I push it again, I push it again, I push it in, I'm insane. I'm crazy. Right? I think that's the problem with hip-hop, and that might be our downfall.

XXL: Really?

Jay-Z: Ultimately, it feeds off itself. It's this big, and it never can grow.
Like, you can't show another side of hip-hop. You cannot show a mature side of hip-hop, that's not a hip-hop thing to do.

XXL: Like you can't bring Gwyneth Paltrow out on stage.

Jay-Z: That's not hip-hop.

XXL: [Laughs]

Jay-Z: People write blogs about that. Very un-hip-hop moment. Very un-hip-hop moment. Are you kidding? But I seen Pac with Madonna, and that was the most hip-hop gangsta shit, I ever wanted to see. You know what I'm saying? I thought that was great. Hip-hop has got to be allowed to grow. If it keeps feeding on itself, then it's not real. 70 years old you talking about, you do what, you do what? Sounds ridiculous to me.

Look for the full story in the December 2006 issue, on stands now!

Go to the next page for more behind-the-scenes at the making of Kingdom Come.

Do It Again
You wanna know why it's just been announced that Ghostface has a new album supposedly coming out this Dec? Maybe ’cause President Carter hasn't gotten over the failure of Fishscale. Taking a break from talk of his new LP, Jay spoke on his continued support of Ghostface despite the brick he caught last spring.

Jay-Z:
"All you can do is make a great album. You know, that's all you can do. People can throw a million dollars in marketing at it, but if it doesn't catch, or, in these days, if you don't have a record that's not spinning every second on the radio and you don't have the most mass attention on the project from an audience standpoint, then, I mean, there's nothing you can do about it. He made a great album. You gotta make a great album. I think he should be proud of the fact that he made a great album. I spoke to Ghostface so he's cool. But, you know, hopefully, next time."

Look for the full story in the December 2006 issue, on stands now!

Go to the next page for more behind-the-scenes at the making of Kingdom Come.

Best of Both Worlds: How Hova and Dre built Kingdom Come's blueprint.

Jay-Z:
"Dre just called me out of nowhere, and he just said, 'Yo I'm in Hawaii, I'm about to send you something.' Now Dre, you know, he's not a tape making person. He sent me about like 25 beats, and it was gone from there. It was like, Okay, this is a problem right now. You know, 25 Dre beats, I mean, what the fuck."

"Actually we was going to do the whole album together but I knew that wouldn't work, only because it's Dr. Dre and Jay-Z, you know, its very difficult to get those two guys in a room together. Dre, he's a creative guy so you can't push those kind of guys. He works his own
way. You gotta let him work at his own pace. So, I knew that wouldn't happen. But we started out like we was going to do the whole album and then, you know, he disappeared for a minute. I left him alone, I didn't call him for a couple months. Maybe two months. Two months."

"Then I just called him, like, 'Yo, uh, I want you to mix something.' I just picked up the conversation like no time had went by. It went smooth, you know what I'm saying? With the records, I would ask him, 'Like, what did you think about that? You love that second verse? What about that third 'cause I can change it.'"

"You know, Dre or whoever is producing the track, I'll let the producer be a producer. Sometimes producers don't want to be producers, they wanna make beats. But working with Dre, it made me critique what I was saying a little more also. Cause I want to be better than the beats too. No one wants the beat to be destroying them. You try to beat the track, no matter who did it."

Young Guru:
"Yeah, Dre was in Hawaii and started sending him CD's and he started playing me some shit and I was like, 'Yeah, we gotta get started.' He had a good 21 beats he sent him on one CD. All that does is get Jay in the stu' getting in the mindset of making a record. Now you call Swizz and be like, 'Swizz, come upstairs and play Jay some shit. Sean Garrett, Swizz is up here, ya'll is writing a record together, come up here and see if you can do a hook for Jay.' Just flipping ideas to try and get him in the mode or make suggestions of what you think he should write about. It's not the easiest thing, cuz it's like, looking back what topic haven't we covered?"

"The thing about Jay is that, the reason he has the longevity is because everything he talks about is true. He pulls from his own life. All the rumors and questions, whatever you want to know, all those things are answered on the album. If you listen hard enough, it's there. All the shit that you want to hear about the Roc breakup, the baby with Free, any rumor, it's in the album. Then he goes a bit more personal, normally Jay does what he does; the hardcore shit, the 'Change Clothes' joints that he knows will get the majority of the people and he may give you one or two personal songs. This album, to me, it seems like it has crazy personal songs. A lot of this stuff is like really really personal shit."

Look for the full story in the December 2006 issue, on stands now!

Go to the next page for more behind-the-scenes at the making of Kingdom Come.

Start of Your Ending: How Jay-Z finally got it together to start recording music again.

Jay-Z: "I put myself in the studio to really get into it. Just me and Guru. Just to feel it out. And it took me like, two weeks [to get going]. I wasn't even making anything. I would go there and just stand there for a couple hours and just listen to new tracks. Then I was like, 'Oh, I'll come back tomorrow.'"

"I would do a full day. I did it in Sony a lot. I would go to the studio and I wouldn't stay late either. I would stay til about 12, 1. You know, about seven, eight, til 12, one, everyday. I wouldn't go in Sunday though. I needed a day off."

Youg Guru:
"It's been the weirdest process of making a Jay album because he's running a company. My normal experience with Jay used to be around two o'clock, he'd be sitting in the front of Baseline, Just Blaze would be doing whatever he's doing and I'd be collecting beats for the day. Jay would come in and we'd make records in about three or four weeks and the album is done. He'd hold court here or be at the 40/40. Now it's like, he's running a whole company and I really don't like playing him beats in the office. The phone rings, everybody's around or someone needs him to sign something or run to a meeting. I gotta get him when his attention is necessary."

"That's the main reason why we didn't do it at Baseline. That's home. We did it at Sony because it's four blocks away from the office. Like, around May he got serious. In the beginning, I tried to keep it secretive to everybody in the building. Baseline is kind of secluded so there's not gonna be another session going on in there with somebody that you don't know. Sony is a big studio. You see the Maybach out front, then you start seeing three or four known rappers out front. It got to the point at the end where everybody knew we had been there for a month already. With people starting to drop by, you can't really concentrate. That's the only reason why I was trying to keep it secret. Not for the public not to know we're making an album, I wanted him to be able to focus and come through that door so we can just work and make a record. It's hard sometime because it's certain people that's family. You can't say, "Don't come over here." But at some point, I need this nigga focused on making this. With Jay, it's a spark, and this time it was with Dre."

Next Time: The stories behind Kingdom Come's Jay-Dre collaborations

Look for the full story in the December 2006 issue, on stands now!

Go to the next page for more behind-the-scenes at the making of Kingdom Come.

Okay, I know. Two songs have leaked in less than a week. And rumors persist that there are more good tunes in the wrong hands. Damn, guess that’s what Hov gets for goin’ the fuck back to Africa. Still, I’m sorry to report, greedy rap gremlins, that when I spoke to Jay in Paris and the Kingdom Come brain trust (producer Just Blaze and engineer Young Guru) back in New York, they all insisted that the album is far from finished. You don’t believe me? Read for yourselves.

Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter:
“I saw a couple of them [fake Kingdom Come track lists on the Internet]. Nah, it’s crazy. I think I’m two songs away. Right now, if I drop the album, it’s really good. If I get two more songs, it could be great. I need [two more songs] because of the album. Everything on there so far is really big. It’s big-sounding. I wouldn’t say real musical, ’cause I wouldn’t want to give people the wrong idea. Late Registration, to me, sounds like a big album. But you still had “Crack Music” and you know, you still had the raw…I just need two stripped-down joints just to round it out, to give the whole thing a theme and a feeling.”

Gimel “Young Guru” Keaton
:
“I was reading a lot of bullshit online—fake track lists, features and producers we don't even know…I don't know what's gonna make it until I actually master it. There's no rapper features on here. The only other feature on here, in terms of vocalists, is Beyoncé.”

“It's always a core, but shit changes. The perfect example is ‘P.S.A.’ ‘P.S.A.’ didn't exist until right when we were about to master. The tough part now is that he's doing the world tour, so we gotta email him beats. He's recording over there, sending stuff back and forth. Where they're at now in Africa, nobody's email is working. Me and Bleek was online yesterday on the IM and he was cutting off on me every five minutes. It was a real weak connection, so those type of physical things are the challenges right now of him actually getting his album done. It's a lot. Dude is a huge world tastemaker, so it's like, having to pull his focus in to get what I need for the album is tough, but it's not impossible. It's one of his joys, so he does it.”

Justin “Just Blaze” Smith:
“If he's coming out November 20, he'll probably be in the studio until at least late October. There are two other songs I did with him, neither one [is] finished yet. We had this one record where the beat changes throughout the entire record. He hasn't put vocals on it yet. He loves the beat, but just hasn't thought of a song for it. I'm praying that one gets to see the light of day ’cause the beat is so ill. Just something for the car or headphones. It would make for an ill story, but not a club record by any means."

“One song he had I did over. I had a better beat for it. It fit crazy. The funny thing is, none of this is intentional. It ends up using another sample that was used in another song. The other beat, it's used in the intro of another popular late-’80's, early-’90s song. So it's kind of funny, I was thinking about this right before you came in. That's three records that, in some shape or form, have some kind of connection to ten, twenty years ago. That's gonna be the new thing: Just is running out of ideas. But it's pure coincidence.”

“I can say I'll definitely have four records on the album. We'll see what happens.”

More Kingdom Come behind-the-scenes:

  • Jay & Just talk about making "Show Me What You Got" (click here)
  • Jay, Just and Guru talk about making "Kingdom Come" (click here)

Check back every few days for new online-only interview outtakes from XXL’s upcoming cover story on Jay-Z.

Look for the full story in the December 2006 issue, on stands now!

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