(AllHipHop News) 9th Wonder is a professor, a producer, a huge Duke fan and possesses ample Hip Hop knowledge. During his appearance on Cipha Sounds and Peter Rosenberg’s Juan Epstein podcast, he spoke on missed Jay Z collaboration, differences between Drake and Phonte and more.
9th Wonder rummaged through his encyclopedic mind of Hip Hop knowledge and gave the date he first played beats for Jay Z: September 20th, 2003, less than a month before The Black Album was released. According to 9th, during his first session with Jay Z, he played him 20 of the 150 beats he had ready and claims that Jay Z wanted the beat for “Lovin’ It”, which ended up becoming Little Brother’s first single off of their sophomore album The Minstrel Show.
When describing his former groupmate Phonte,9th had nothing but the highest praise as he called the MC “one of the best, if not the best rapper in the last decade.” After simply saying that “Young Money” was the difference between Drake garnering mainstream success as opposed to Phonte, 9th Wonder explained the mechanics behind mainstream music :
Young Money created a platform for Drake to have that platform to get to a larger audience. Once you get to that particular platform of being mainstream, you know, you are being exposed to a bunch of people who dont matter what you sounds like. Kendrick Lamar is a classic example. How many people out of the people that bought his album really understand Kendrick Lamar? We can say maybe 200, 250 thousand.
Check out the full Juan Epstein podcast below: