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It's one of the most fabled stories in hip-hop history: Jay-Z and the Notorious B.I.G. meeting in the studio to collaborate on what would become the scorching track "Brooklyn's Finest," from Jay's classic debut, Reasonable Doubt.
One top-class MC pitted against a rising blue-chip MC, and when Jay passed Biggie a notebook to jot down words for his verse, the Bad Boy rapper passed it back and responded that he doesn't write down his lyrics. Jay said that he didn't either, and the lyrical showdown began.
The result was undeniable, but if you're wondering why Jay doesn't have more great stories behind his numerous collaborations, it's because that recording session was one of the few where he and the guest artist knew prior to the song being complete that they'd be working together.
And with the advent of technology and artists being able to e-mail audio files to producers and engineers, a guest like Lil Wayne doesn't even get to hear the completed version of his song with Jay - "Hello Brooklyn 2.0" from American Gangster - basically until the general population does.
"It ruins the spirit," Jay admitted to MTV News. "You wanna know the conversation and the camaraderie and how'd you come up with that idea. That part is lost through the technology, but that's just the day and age that we live in. Technology makes it convenient to be in two different cities and make one song. There's a million stories that came out of that one session that me and Big was in - even the most important: us finding out that we didn't write. You couldn't get that, and that's just classic."
