WIZ BUCHANAN
Producer, “What More Can I Say”
We were working with Lupe Fiasco. The guy that he owned Lupe’s label, him and Jay were really good friends. It came up that Jay was working on his last album and we might be able to get him some music. I sent him one record with the hook, intro, and everything in it already. They called back like, “Yo, send the files.” Then Jay called like, “Tell your peoples I think I bodied this beat. Tell them to come to the studio.” It was surreal. We just sent one beat. That was our first placement ever. I wasn’t even really a producer, I was in a rap crew. The kid that sang on the hook lived across the street from me in the projects. We recorded the hook in my house. The beat was maybe a year or two old before I even sent it to him. I had played it for a couple people and they didn’t get it. Certain tracks are just meant for certain artists. Jay said, “What if I hadn’t liked that beat?” I was like, “If you didn’t like that you wouldn’t have liked anything.”
Moment of Clarity: An Oral History of Jay Z’s The Black Album | The FADER
Jay wanted to sign Lu. They've known each other for a while. I'm guessing Jay had Lu give him songs or help with concepts.