Paul Wall is reflecting on his first interaction with Jay-Z, which included the legendary rapper clearing a Kanye West verse and beat without the usual steep price.
In 2005, Wall appeared on Ye’s Late Registration album cut, “Drive Slow” alongside GLC. Wall also wanted the song to appear on his debut album, The Peoples Champ, which arrived just weeks later.
At the time, Jay was president of Def Jam, and Wall was signed to Atlantic. According to the Houston rapper, Atlantic “talked” Hov into letting them include “Drive Slow” on The Peoples Champ.
“Jay-Z cleared it. He said, ‘Yup, I’mma let you do that,'” Wall said.
Wall explained that at the time, in addition to paying the artist to appear on your album, verses and beats had to be cleared with the label, and artists had to pay the label. Labels had a tier system, with artists' fee depending on whether they were a platinum or gold artist.
“If you're neither one of those, they have a tier of artists that no matter what, no matter how much you pay, they’re not gonna clear it,” Wall said. “I’m not in that tier. I’m not gold or platinum, so my debut major label album, The Peoples Champ, had Kanye West on it, but I’m not a … platinum or gold artist at that time.”
Still, Jay waived the fees.
“Only thing Jay-Z said was, ‘Man, only thing I want you to do is pay Kanye West whatever he charges for a beat. I want you to pay him for that ‘cause he’s letting you use the beat. So just to be fair, I’m not gonna charge you a clearance fee for his verse, but to be fair for him, pay him what he wants for the beat.’ So we paid for the beat.”
Wall said he first met Jay-Z at the MTV Video Music Awards. While Paul didn’t share what year that happened, it’s likely they connected in 2005, the same year Late Registration and The Peoples Champ dropped.
“I’m walking by and I see [Jay], and I don’t know if he knows who I am,” Wall said. “I’m assuming he don’t have a clue who I am ‘cause why would he?”
Wall said that the photographer Johnny Nuñez asked to take a photo of them together, inadvertently introducing them.
“The first thing [Jay] say, ‘Hey, you know I looked out for you, right? You know you owe me, right, for that Jay-Z clearance?'” prompting Wall to respond, “‘Whenever you ready to collect, I got it waiting for you. Whatever I owe you.’ … I'm still waiting for him to call me on that favor.”
Ye’s sophomore album, Late Registration, arrived on Aug. 30, 2005, via Roc-A-Fella Records and Def Jam Recordings. Wall’s commercial debut, The Peoples Champ, arrived two weeks later, on Sept. 13 via Atlantic Records, Asylum Records, and Swishahouse.
Both projects opened at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
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