Paul Wall is looking back on his first encounter with Jay-Z, which came with a major blessing: getting a Kanye West verse and beat cleared without the hefty price tag.
In 2005, Wall was featured on Ye’s Late Registration track “Drive Slow” alongside GLC. Wanting to also include the record on his debut album The Peoples Champ, which dropped just weeks later, Wall needed approval.
At the time, Jay-Z was president of Def Jam, while Wall was signed to Atlantic. According to the Houston rapper, Atlantic convinced Hov to greenlight it.
“Jay-Z cleared it. He said, ‘Yup, I’mma let you do that,’” Wall recalled.
Paul Wall broke down just how much of a favor Jay-Z did for him when it came to including “Drive Slow” on his debut.
Back in 2005, getting a verse and beat on your album wasn’t just about paying the artist—labels also had to clear it, and that came with steep fees. Labels used a tier system, charging different rates depending on whether an artist was gold or platinum.
“If you’re neither one of those, they have a tier of artists that no matter what, no matter how much you pay, they’re not gonna clear it,” Wall explained. “I’m not in that tier. I’m not gold or platinum, so my debut major label album, The Peoples Champ, had Kanye West on it, but I’m not a … platinum or gold artist at that time.”
Still, Jay waived the clearance fee.
“Only thing Jay-Z said was, ‘Man, only thing I want you to do is pay Kanye West whatever he charges for a beat. I want you to pay him for that ‘cause he’s letting you use the beat. So just to be fair, I’m not gonna charge you a clearance fee for his verse, but to be fair for him, pay him what he wants for the beat.’ So we paid for the beat.”
Wall recalled first meeting Jay at the MTV VMAs around that time. Unsure if Jay even knew who he was, photographer Johnny Nuñez introduced them by snapping a photo.
“The first thing [Jay] say, ‘Hey, you know I looked out for you, right? You know you owe me, right, for that Jay-Z clearance?’” Wall remembered. “I said, ‘Whenever you ready to collect, I got it waiting for you. Whatever I owe you.’ … I’m still waiting for him to call me on that favor.”
Ye’s Late Registration dropped on Aug. 30, 2005, via Roc-A-Fella and Def Jam, while Wall’s The Peoples Champ arrived two weeks later, on Sept. 13, via Atlantic, Asylum, and Swishahouse. Both debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
