One of recent hip-hop’s biggest moments was Jay Electronica‘s long-awaited debut album, A Written Testimony. After a decade-long wait, fans finally received the album, and it was undoubtedly worth the wait, as Jay-Z surprised listers by appearing on eight of the album’s ten songs. In addition to the strong verses from both Jay-Z and Jay Electronica, there was also impressive production from the likes of No I.D., The Alchemist, Hit-Boy, and Swizz Beatz. Fresh off his epic beat battle with Timbaland Tuesday night, Swizz Beatz sat down with Elliot Wilson of Rap Radar to discuss his experience working on A Written Testimony.
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The interview took place on Instagram Live, allowing hip-hop fans everywhere to join in and watch. In it, Wilson asked Swizz what it was like to witness Jay-Z and Jay Electronica “bouncing off each other lyrically,” and questioned whether or not the two rappers pushed each other as they recorded their verses.
“I witnessed that those two men are so intelligent and so smart,” Swizz Beatz replied. “It was like they was writing scriptures man, Jay Electronica, the way he take his time to process before he tells us what he’s saying, I’ve never seen it. I’ve seen it with Hov, Jay Electronica… it was like he would go to the cosmos and come back with the scriptures… We was waiting on four bars for a month, four bars! But those four bars meant so much to him that even if it took a month, it took a month.”
At the end, Swizz commended Jay Electronica’s desire to not compromise his craft for hype, a quality he said he’s also found with Jay-Z over the years.
You can watch their conversation in the video above.
