Vibe Magazine talks to Jadakiss speaks on his Top 5 favorite songs he's ever done:
#1. "Last Day" Notorious B.I.G. featuring the Lox
“When we did ‘Last Day’ with Biggie the Lox was still wet behind the ears. We had just signed a deal with Bad Boy; the music business was all new to us. We were still hanging around in the ‘hood in Yonkers when we got the call from Puffy that BIG wanted us on his Life After Death project. So you could just imagine the adrenaline and the anxiety that was going through our minds. It was like, ‘Yo, they want us to go down to Daddy’s House to get on a song with BIG!’ We get all the proper accessories for our studio session, which we really didn’t need because BIG had it already laid out. So we get there and the beat is knocking and we find out that the track was produced by Havoc [from Mobb Deep].
The whole Junior Mafia was there. The scenery and lights were just ill. There’s a bunch of weed smoke and it’s foggy. It’s crowded and there was a party atmosphere, but it was still dead serious.I tried to get over on BIG. I had some bars already written before I got into the booth and came up with the verse that you hear today. But BIG was like, ‘Nah…I like it, but I need something else.’ Now this is BIG telling me that I have to come with something better. I used to second-guess sometimes when Puff would tell me to switch up my verse, but when BIG told me, I didn’t even think about it. I just did it.
I went back to a neutral corner and started writing. I tried to ride this beat as much I could and say some hard shit. That’s when I came with, ‘You already know what it’s about when I run in your house…’ People loved that cadence and flow. Diddy was like, ‘You nailed it!’ BIG was the one that put the battery in my back. It was the same feeling for Styles and Sheek, if I could speak for them. BIG was the one that told us. ‘Yo, y’all are nice, man.’ Once he said that, that’s all I needed. I was on top of the world. I was ready to take this music industry on.”
#2. Well Always Love Big Poppa - The Lox
“This song was really serious because we were actually at that party in L.A. with BIG before he was killed. When we saw him at the party, BIG was having so much fun. He was so happy to be there. He was even going to stay in L.A. for another month. Just think about the whole irony of that. That was our first time in L.A. as well. So imagine how we felt when BIG died. We are going through it. We were thinking all kinds of thoughts. At that time Puff was still handling BIG’s funeral services. We were at Powerhouse studios and Sheek, Styles and myself decided, ‘Yo, we should just do a song for BIG.’ Dame Grease produced the beat and Puff added the kids singing. And it just came out beautifully. ‘We’ll Always Love Big Poppa’ was a real heartfelt statement. There were no gimmicks to it. We wasn’t trying to sell it and have it become this huge hit. When we finished the song and sent it to Puff, D-Rock and all of Biggie’s loved ones we heard there was a lot of crying in the room. There was a mix of sadness and joy”
#3. 24 Hours To Live - Ma$e Featuring The Lox, DMX, Black Rob and Puffy
“Mase was actually really close with us. He used to come up to Yonkers everyday and write with us. He always told us, ‘Yo, if I get in the game I’m going to take it to the extreme!’ That’s why he loved wearing the shiny suits and dancing. All of that was premeditated for him. He didn’t have a problem doing it. Mase wanted the glitz and glamour. He loved that part of the game. But he was still a real MC.
When we got the call for ’24 Hrs. To Live’ we were again hanging out again in Yonkers. Mase was wrapping up his album and he wanted us on it. Mase tells us the concept of the song—if you had 24 hours to live, what would you do? That was basically easy for us. We knew it was going to be competitive with Mase, Black Rob and DMX on the same track. We just went in on it. I can’t tell you who had the best verse [laughs]. We all killed it.”
#4. Honey (Bad Boy Remix) - Mariah Featuring Ma$e, The Lox and Puffy
“When we were asked to do this song with Mariah we were so young. It just let us know the huge caliber of an artist Mariah was. It was a challenge to appeal to Mariah’s pop audience and still appeal to our audience. But really, it’s not too hard as long as you ride the beat and don’t do too much cursing. I remember being at the Hit Factory doing another session and Stevie J was upstairs with Mariah doing ‘Honey.’ They came in like, ‘Yo, Kiss…you want to lay a verse on this Mariah joint?’ I was like, ‘Hell, yeah!’ I left my session and went right upstairs and got on that joint [laughs]. You can’t turn down that kind of opportunity. I got busy and knocked it right out.”
#5. Money, Power, Respect - The Lox Featuring Lil Kim and DMX
“This was our debut album so it was important for us to make the right statement. We felt really good about the title track [‘Money, Power & Respect.’] Working on that song and video was a big adrenaline rush. I had a lot of pressure on me too because I was sick and I missed the recording session. Style and Sheek had already laid their verses down. I’m walking in and I got D-Dot telling me, ‘Yo, what you gonna do, man?’ I got Diddy telling me, ‘Yo, Styles’ and Sheek’s verses are crazy!’ I’m like, ‘Aw, man…’ And that was the great part about being in the Lox. You are always going to get three hot verses. You never had to worry about somebody lagging behind. So I was able to get in where I fit it.
We got the track done but we still needed a hook so the label was like, ‘We are going to get Lil Kim for y’all.’ We were excited because we knew what Kim could come with just off of her own stuff and [what she did on ‘It’s All About The Benjamins.’] When she came down and laid her vocals it was like when your mom bakes a cake. It looks so pretty when it comes out the oven. It’s just sitting there cooling off, but then they put the icing, the pineapples and the coconut on it and it looks even better. That’s what Kim did to ‘Money, Power & Respect.’ She was the icing and everything else on the cake. To tell you the truth, I like Sheek’s and Style’s parts are better than my part. I love how Styles came in and gave them the ‘Tick tock only time could tell how the clock ticks/I’m really loved here, but I’m still a hostage.’ Then Sheek was riding that joint when he said, ‘Two thirty, six two…’ And then we had DMX on that track! He murdered it.
But we hated ‘If You Think I’m Jiggy.’ We were still raw. We didn’t really understand the art of hit making yet. We were just raw spitters at that time. And ‘Jiggy’ ended up being a hit, so that scared us. We didn’t understand that having a crossover song could be a good thing. I remember when we finally left Bad Boy and signed to Ruff Ryders, we were all on tour with Cash Money. Part of our act was we would come out onstage with the shiny suits on to ‘If You Think I’m Jiggy’ and rip them off, and go into one of our harder records. But the crowd would sometimes go, ‘Awww…’ They wanted us to keep rocking ‘Jiggy’ [laughs]. They didn’t really get that we were spoofing the song. You learn later in life that people like what they like. Still, making our first album was a priceless experience.”
LOL, Ironically they are all Bad Boy Era tracks.