00:00What's up y'all, this is Jermaine Dupri and this is my Billboard chart history.
00:16Okay, so the first thing that I was thinking was like, this ain't my song, it hit me.
00:22I haven't heard that song in a long time, the first Jagged Edge record that I did featuring
00:26myself in the Brat.
00:27I just remember the video, we went all the way out for the video.
00:31I put like four baby grand white pianos out in the middle of a parking lot and let them
00:35stand on top of the pianos.
00:37I was just trying to make the biggest video I could possibly make for my group.
00:40It didn't work well, but.
00:43From the first time that me and Brat started rapping back to back, I just remember people's
00:47reaction to it and it being something that I hadn't seen in hip hop, like a Bunny and Clyde
00:53type of group in rap basically.
00:57I was just trying to find the groove that Chingy had on his first record.
01:03Pulling Me Back was such a big single, we just trying to follow up with something that
01:19that made people dance and that had that St. Louis and Atlanta bop to it.
01:25I was trying to make the beat feel like grills, but not like grills.
01:36I wanted the beat to give you a little break and then hit the 808 and then give you a little
01:40break.
01:41It's an interesting process.
01:42I remember making the videos, like a regular like, you know, girls and guys in the video.
01:46When I was dating Jaina, I had Dana come to this video shoot and the girl was rubbing
01:51her ass on me and I remember me and Jana getting into like a little argument after the video
01:55about that.
01:56It's a video.
01:57You know what I mean?
01:58It was like, it was crazy because it was like the one time that I'm like, yo, you should
02:02come to the video.
02:03We making a video.
02:04And that's what happened.
02:05That's what I remember about this song.
02:07I mean, that's the one thing I remember.
02:09But the song is talking about the girls and they know how they body looks in the jeans,
02:13so this is what was happening.
02:15But I chose to say like, bring your girl to work today type shit and this is what happened.
02:33What the Hook Gonna Be, Murphy Lee.
02:35This probably is one of the funniest records ever because the hook of the song is actually
02:40a question that was actually asked in this session.
02:44Nelly came and they're like, yo, what the hook gonna be?
02:47I don't think me or Murphy had a hook and we both was like, I don't know what the hook
02:52gonna be.
02:53I think the way it was said, it sounded like the hook and Nelly was like, that's the hook.
02:58And I'm like, what's the hook?
03:00It was almost like that scene from like Purple Rain when Mars Day and Jerome was talking and
03:05they was like, what's the password?
03:07The password is, and he was like, the password is what?
03:11It was almost like that.
03:12That was another fast one because it was just like, are we really getting ready to say what
03:16the hook gonna be?
03:17I don't need no fucking hook on this beat.
03:19At that point, it just started morphing into an idea that's just like, wow, what the hook
03:24gonna be?
03:25We don't need no hook.
03:26This is the hook.
03:27The hook became, no hook became a hook.
03:30This is a song that I remixed like three times.
03:47So the first version of this song was Me and Snoop Dogg.
03:51And it was on the Men in Black soundtrack.
03:54I did a remix of the song.
03:56The original song had Trey Loren singing the hook.
03:58I took Trey and Snoop off that and I put Usher.
04:03I replaced Snoop with Brat.
04:05Usher feature was just right after the success of My Way.
04:09It didn't make no sense for me to use anybody else.
04:11All I wanna do is make you dance with me.
04:21Dance with me.
04:22Yeah.
04:23Yeah, yeah, yeah.
04:24Bad.
04:25Yeah.
04:26Fresh as I'm is.
04:27This was a song that, in my practice of writing songs for people, especially younger people,
04:30and getting the best performance out of them, is that you gotta write something so good
04:36when you demo it, that they actually, they want to do it so bad, like they can't wait
04:42to do the song.
04:43This song I demoed for Bow.
04:45I was having some fun when I was demoing the song.
04:48I think that he heard that immediately.
04:51For him, this song sounded like Bow Wow transitioning into rap records that sounded like they was
04:57compatible with adults.
04:59I just remember his excitement about doing this song, like he's like, get out of here,
05:05go do what y'all gotta do.
05:06When you come back, this song gonna be done and like, and you can tell even when he performs
05:09this song, like this is one of his favorite songs.
05:26Money ain't a thing, me and Jay-Z, there's a lot of memories about this song.
05:29I called Jay, told him what I wanted to do, he's like, all right, I'm gonna come.
05:34He gave me a date, he was flying to Atlanta.
05:36So I'm sitting at my house.
05:37I was in the studio trying to make a beat.
05:39I was trying to figure out what we was gonna do, right?
05:42Because we hadn't spoke about creative, we was just coming to Atlanta to make a song.
05:46I left my house to go pick him up and in the car I'm trying to get in Jay-Z mode.
05:51So I put in Can't Knock the Hustle.
05:54I'm listening to him rap.
06:00In the verse he says, I was like, wait a minute, hold up, wait, wait.
06:06And by the way, this trip to the airport is not even 10 minutes.
06:09So I was already at the airport, still like messing with the CD, like going back, listening
06:14to it.
06:15And I'm like, that's it, money ain't a thing.
06:17And I remember me driving fast, trying to get to the airport, because I felt like he
06:21didn't want to make him wait long.
06:23My mentality at that time was, you know, screaming through the sunroof, money ain't a thing type
06:28of mentality.
06:29So I get to the airport, he get in the car, I'm like, yo, I want to sample this.
06:33I'm going to sample this part where it said, money ain't a thing.
06:36And I see him like not mouthing the rap, but I see him like thinking to himself.
06:41We get to my house, we get in the studio, I play the beat, I say, this is the beat I
06:45want to do.
06:46He hit a beat for like less than 10 minutes and he's like, I'm ready.
06:50And I'm like, you ready to do what?
06:53And he's like, I'm ready to go.
06:55And I'm like, when did you write your verse?
06:57He's like, I wrote it when he was in the car.
06:59And I'm like, what?
07:01Yeah, that was my first time watching Jay-Z do the no write on paper thing.
07:07That song taught me a lot.
07:10And there's a lot of memories about that record.
07:24I think they liked me was, it was this period of time where I was going through this like
07:29mixtape JD era where I was just like jumping on people's songs that didn't even like give
07:34me the permission to jump on their records.
07:37The Franchise Boys, they had a song called White Tea where I put a verse on that song.
07:42I was on their radar, they was on my radar.
07:45I was trying to figure out a way why I could call Universal and be like, yo, let's trade
07:48artists.
07:49Let's do something.
07:50One morning I woke up and Universal was like cutting ties with the Franchise Boys.
07:54And I was like, oh shit, this must be my lucky day.
07:58I went to Authors, I'm like, I'm signing them immediately.
08:00Oh, I think they liked me was on the radio in Atlanta, but it didn't have me, Bret and
08:05Bow-Wah on there.
08:06And at this time, Bow-Wah was Mr. 106 in part.
08:09Bow-Wah wasn't quick to want to be on this song.
08:11He didn't actually like this song at all.
08:13Didn't like the record when I first heard it.
08:15Didn't not like the song.
08:16Didn't understand it.
08:17I think that's when we're entering that new wave of hip hop.
08:20You know what I mean?
08:21That's when Atlanta, the snap music started taking over.
08:23Them Franchise Boys was also considered like Atlanta underground.
08:27I think that Bow-Wah was so commercial and so successful from a different side of the world,
08:33him not knowing about it and it being underground and not being in the clubs like that, it didn't
08:40really strike him as like, this could be the next thing.
08:44He went along with it, but he didn't like the verse.
08:46He didn't like the song at all.
08:48But I mean, that's cool.
08:49Usher didn't like damn near none of the songs we did.
08:53The first memory of this song was that I was in the studio trying to create a song for
09:12me and OutKast.
09:13I couldn't figure out what we were going to talk about.
09:15I'm in there trying to come up with ideas, come up with ideas.
09:19When I walk out the studio, I always used to keep like MTV or BET, something playing
09:24in the studio.
09:25The Ludacris video of Throw Them Bosers On and it's a doormat at the bottom of the floor
09:31in the house that says, Welcome to Atlanta.
09:33And I'm looking at the video and I'm like, Welcome to Atlanta.
09:36That's it.
09:37That's the name of the song.
09:38At that point, I felt like I can't take this idea from Ludacris and give it to OutKast.
09:44I got to make this song with Ludacris.
09:47So that's ultimately how that song came about.
09:50And I called Ludacris and was like, yo, I want to make this song called Welcome to Atlanta.
09:54The rest is history.
09:55This was a song that was supposed to be me and Missy, but the label didn't approve of
10:14the Missy version.
10:15And I re-rapped Missy verse on my second verse.
10:19And I just made the song a full Jermaine Dupree record.
10:22The label fucked that up, but yeah, that's what it was.
10:25I was trying to introduce the world to Jontae Austin as a songwriter.
10:28Cause I signed him at the time that I was at Virgin.
10:30So I put Jontae on the song too.
10:32Gotta get you.
10:33First of all, I wasn't supposed to be singing on this song.
10:49That's supposed to be T-Pain.
10:50I made the song and I'm like, let's get T-Pain on there.
10:53For some reason we didn't get T-Pain.
10:54I don't know if somebody was just like, nah, let's just keep JD on the song or whatever.
10:58But we didn't get T-Pain.
10:59We couldn't get T-Pain for some reason.
11:01Everybody just liked it with my voice on there.
11:03I didn't prefer my voice on the song.
11:05I didn't care.
11:06I'm not trying to sing on these songs.
11:08Same thing happened on the Can I Get Your Number record with Mariah.
11:10When she came to the studio, I was like, I want her to sing the, oh damn, I wanted to
11:15do that part.
11:16But she was like, no, I'll do this song, but you got to stay on it.
11:19And I'm like, I don't want to, I'm not singing on the song, but that's the same thing happened
11:23with this song.
11:24Working with Fab was very easy because he's so melodic and he got like a lot of different
11:29pockets.
11:30So if you are, if you can sketch out the right plays for him, it's a, it's a very much like
11:34easy way to get in the studio.
11:36He's definitely an easy, easy guy to work with.
11:38He's always trying to make better records.
11:40So you got to make things that push him.
11:42So this song actually was a record that I found before he came to the studio and I was like,
11:47yo, you got to rap over this beat.
11:49And when he got there, just like instantly.
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