Barry Bonds By Kanye West
Kanye West’s “Barry Bonds” song which was on the “Graduation” album in 2007, was supposed to feature both Lil’ Wayne and Jay-Z. Wayne made the final album, but Jay-Z did not. How come Jay-Z didn’t make the retail version of the song? Ye said that Jay didn’t turn in his verse on time. Apparently Ye still has the Jay-Z verse somewhere.
This Is It By Paul Anka
Yup, this is a real one. Jay-Z was supposed to be on Paul Anka’s 2013 album “Duets”. Anka had selected Jay for the track “This Is It” featuring Michael Jackson. Jay-Z had sampled Sinatra and Anka on Blueprint 2, so Anka thought Jay-Z would happily return the favor. Jay never returned Anka’s repeated phone calls, and that was the start of their beef. Anka publicly said he was not happy with the way Jay-Z handled the situation.
Ante Up Remix By M.O.P.
M.O.P. planned to get Jay-Z and Prodigy of Mobb Deep on the remix to their huge hit single “Ante Up” in the winter 2001. M.O.P. actually did get a verse recorded from Prodigy before finalizing the song, in which Prodigy was taking shots at Jay-Z. M.O.P. thought that even though P and Jay-Z were beefing at the time, that there might be a small chance they could still get both artists on the track. Once they heard prodigy’s verse, in which he was dissing Jay-Z, Danze quickly realized there was no way Jay would join the song. He called Jay-Z up and told him that the song was already finished. In the end, neither Prodigy or Jay-Z was used on the song and Remy Ma made it instead.
Three Jays By Jay Rock
This one comes from Jay Rock’s “Redemption” album. Jay Rock was planning on recording a track with he, J. Cole and then HOV. The back up artist for the song would have been for Jay Electronica to hop on the song, if HOV was unavailable. Guess what? Neither Jay-Z or Electronica made the final version of the song.
Foolish By Ashanti
Back in 2002, the original plan for Ashanti’s “Foolish” single, was to have Jay-Z rap 16 bars at the end of the song. Irv Gott originally thought that was a great strategy, for the veteran MC to join the newcomer R&B singer. Irv then changed his mind, thinking that adding a Jay-Z’s verses would just be what every R&B track was in 2002, a lot of singing and then a guest rap appearance. Irv Gotti said that’s what every R&B singer does and forced Ashanti to do the exact opposite. He canceled the Jay-Z verse and made Ashanti sing the entire song solo.