Young Guru is the sound engineer that has been working with Jay-Z for over a decade. He's had a behind-the-scenes look at the creative process and continued evolution of one of the best rappers to ever do it, and talking to someone like that is fascinating. We sat down with him to pick his brain and he gave us some details about Jay's upcoming solo album and the follow-up to Watch The Throne. Full interview coming soon.
On Jay-Z's upcoming solo album:
"Jay-Z is always working on stuff, it’s a concept that I can’t talk about but I’m marveled at how smart this guy is. When he told me the concept, I was like ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ It was just so simple. It’s not a concept album though. It’s not like American Gangster, it’s not a Beatles concept album. It has a concept and a title, and the title and the concept fit him so well that people are going to be like ‘Wow.’"
"I like certain writers because it takes me 8,000 paragraphs to get my full point across. When somebody can take what I just said and condense it into two sentences and still have the same effectiveness, that’s a good writer. The simplicity of the title and the concept that it conveys is incredible."
"I can’t tell you the title, it’s so good it’s like, ‘Oh my god why didn’t I think of that? What made you think of that and why haven’t we done that before?’ It’s just staring us in the face all these years, we could’ve been put that out as an album concept."
On the possibility of Watch The Throne 2:
"It's definitely a serious consideration. Hasn’t been underway yet but definitely serious consideration. Has been talked about but hasn’t been executed yet. Definitely could happen. A lot of artists just say shit too but if you think about it, this is just my opinion, the way I would like it to go-I would like Kanye to do the G.O.O.D. Music album and Jay-Z to do a solo album then they go out and tour and do all that shit and then next year, or the end of the year, we get Watch the Throne 2. To me, that would be the best thing to happen. I think the G.O.O.D. Music album is necessary for Kanye to establish that brand because they need to establish [themselves]."
Interview by Insanul Ahmed
