Jeezy admitted he fumbled the bag on what could’ve been one of the biggest features of his career after JAY-Z scrapped his verse on Beyoncé’s “Drunk in Love.”
Speaking on the “7PM in Brooklyn” podcast, the Atlanta rapper looked back at the missed moment with a mix of regret and humor.
“I dropped the ball when I wrote my verse for ‘Drunk In Love’ for Beyoncé,” he said.
The verse never made it to the final cut of the 2013 hit, and according to Jeezy, it was JAY-Z himself who broke the news.
“Hov called me,” Jeezy explained. “He’s like, ‘I took you off the song. By the way, I’m on there.’ I was like, ‘I figured that.'”
When asked about the unreleased verse, Jeezy laughed and said he’d love to track it down and have Beyoncé drop it one day—just for the culture.
“It’s on someone’s drive,” he said before adding, “Tell Bey we need to put that out. It’s some vintage.”
The rapper recalled the one and only time he was in the studio with both Beyoncé and JAY-Z and how things quickly went sideways.
“[Jay-Z] came in the room and [Beyoncé’s] like ‘You got something for this?'” Jeezy said. “You know I’m going in. It sounded crazy. This is her song, but I’m just trying to go hard. He probably like, ‘Oh nah. We no putting that out.'”
Laughing, Jeezy admitted, “That was a mistake.”
Despite that misstep, Jeezy and JAY-Z had collaborated before the Beyoncé blunder.
Their track “Real As It Gets” appeared on Jeezy’s 2008 album The Recession. That same year, Jeezy dropped “My President” featuring Nas, a record celebrating Barack Obama’s historic nomination.
JAY-Z later surprised Jeezy with a remix of “My President Is Black,” which he debuted live at Jeezy’s Presidential Status Inauguration Ball in Washington, D.C., on Sunday, January 18, 2009.
“I didn’t even hear the record,” Jeezy said. “They stop the song and play the instrumental. He start rapping a verse I never heard before.”
Watch JAY-Z give Jeezy the shock of his life in the clip below.
Ima cry RT @DMVFollowers: 8 yrs ago today, Jeezy & Jay-Z perform ‘My President is Black’ at LOVE Nightclub in D.C. pic.twitter.com/cK2YroHVYq
— big maaama 💕 (@itserickaaa_) January 19, 2017