Jay-Z and The Notorious B.I.G. came from similar upbringings in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn to become two of the most respected rappers in history. In 1997, the two teamed up for “I Love the Dough,” a collab from Biggie’s sophomore album Life After Death. The two met up in person to record the song, and it was astounding for those in the studio to witness.
Jay-Z and The Notorious B.I.G. had similar upbringings
One of Biggie’s producers, Nashiem Myrick, reflected on watching Jay-Z and Biggie record “I Love the Dough” in a 2003 interview with XXL. At the time, Jay-Z was riding the success of his 1996 debut album Reasonable Doubt, while Biggie was preparing his highly-anticipated second LP.
“Jigga and Big, them n****s was really battling. Both of them don’t write their rhymes down; they just say it in their heads,” Myrick said. “On the low, they was going at it. Not going at each other in the lyrics, but going at it skill-wise. It was a sight to see. It was like, ‘Let me see what this n**** is going to do in the booth.’ You could tell they were testing each other.”
Biggie was first shocked at Jay-Z’s ability to rap off the top of his head while recording their first collab “Brooklyn’s Finest” for Reasonable Doubt. “That s*** was crazy,” Biggie told his producer at the studio, according to the 2022 book It Was All a Dream: Biggie and the World That Made Him.
To create “I Love the Dough,” Biggie’s longtime producer Easy Mo Bee decided to flip René Moore and Angela Winbush’s 1981 song “I Love You More.”
“I came up to Puff like, ‘Remember this joint — René and Angela, “I Love You More?”‘ Puff was like, ‘Yo, go hook it up, n****. I don’t want to talk about it, hook it up.’ So I went and I hooked it up, drummed it up, ended up playing keyboards on the track and everything. I had no idea what Big was gonna put to it. I didn’t even know he was gonna walk last-minute in the studio and be like, ‘Yo, Mo, I’m doing this joint with Jigga!’ I’m looking up from the equipment, like, ‘Word? Aight.'”
Biggie and Jay-Z got Angela Winbush on ‘I Love the Dough’
Easy Mo Bee watched as both Biggie and Jay-Z prepared to lay down their verses without writing anything down.
“Big came in with Jay, and they start cross-pacing. Imagine two people, pacing back and forth, criss-crossing each other, and not looking at each other, doing their writing process in their head, mumbling to themselves, getting their lyrics right and kickin’ it with each other in between. They was taking their time,” he recounted.
“After a while Big came over to me and was like, ‘Yo, me and Jay, we gonna go out for a little while. We’ll be back.’ That night was the last time I saw Big,” he continued, admitting that his tiredness got the best of him. “I waited and waited for them to come back, and it got so late, I just told [record executive] D-Dot, like, ‘I’ma break out.'”
“To this day, I wish I could’ve been there when Big, Jigga, and Angela Winbush did them vocals and everything. They had gone and got Angela Winbush,” Mo said admiringly. “[When I heard] Big, Jay-Z, and Angela Winbush, reiterating ‘I Love You More’ to ‘I Love The Dough,’ I fell out. I was like, ‘Oh man, they doing their thing. They went back and got the original girl.'”
“I know that was definitely Puff’s idea,” he added of Diddy’s vision. “They went and got the original artist. Have her sing the hook over, not just sing the hook over but reiterate and change the words up. I was happy with that.”
Ultimately, Biggie wouldn’t live to see “I Love the Dough”‘s release. His album Life After Death was released in March 1997, just two weeks after the rapper’s untimely death in Los Angeles.
Biggie was often impressed by Jay-Z’s rap skills
Biggie may have emitted braggadocio, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t admit when he’d been beaten at his own game. His Junior M.A.F.I.A. groupmate Lil’ Cease spoke about when Biggie realized that Jay-Z wasn’t to be taken lightly.
“Big met him at the Palladium and they bonded just on some G s*** because they respected each other as men and they respected each other as artists,” Cease said in a 2016 Instagram Live with Smoke DZA. “Big wasn’t afraid to tell that; Big thought [Jay-Z] was doper than him. Big used to say, ‘Yo, that n**** nicer than me.’ … When Jay-Z said that line on ‘Dead Presidents,’ ‘N**** take a freeze off my kneecap / N**** believe that,’ Big was like, ‘Yo, he got me.’”
Jay-Z, for his part, was equally impressed by Biggie’s skills. “I remember when he was doing Life After Death and he sent me four songs in the demo stage,” he remembered, according to It Was All a Dream. “I was like, ‘Oh my God! We got a problem!’ I was happy for him and I was upset for myself. I was a little worried about myself as an artist.”
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