I almost didn’t make the record," he said. "Big called me at the last minute, and said, 'Get me a track,' and I told him, 'I don’t have time to make one.' I had other deadlines to meet at the time. He was on his way to blow up, and I loved him, and I wanted to help, but I really just didn’t have the time...he just kept pushing me like, ’Yo, Prem, please, please, I ain’t got no more money in my budget. All I got is $5,000.’ And I’m like, ’Dude, I cost way more than that, but I love you, and I’m going to go ahead and look out for you. Just get up here tonight.’ And I did that beat. He was here...he just went in there and spit it. No paper, no nothing. He actually just sits there for hours. And you’d think he’s not doing anything, or even concentrating, and then when it’s getting damn near three or four in the morning, you ask him, 'Dude, are we going to do this tonight? Or are we coming back tomorrow?' He’ll be like, 'Nah, I’m ready.’ And he just gets up, and goes in there. Bangs it. Done."
Premo also recalled a similar experience while recording Nas's "N.Y. State of Mind." He said that Nas actually belted out the song's first in one take.
"That was just amazing because it happened in this room," he noted. "Nas watched me build the beat from scratch. And he wrote the verse in the studio. If you listen to "N.Y. State of Mind," you'll hear him going, "I don"t know how to start this shit," because he literally just wrote it. Before he started the verse, I was signaling him going, "One, two, three," and he just goes in like, "Rappers I monkey flip 'em, in the funky rhythm." He did that in one take. After he did that first verse, he goes, "How was that? Did that sound all right?" And we were just like, "Oh, my God! The streets are going to go crazy when they hear this!"