Fabolous Reveals Jay Z Gave Him One Of His Biggest Hits (Video)
As two of Brooklyn’s finest MCs, there are a lot of parallels between Fabolous and Jay Z. Besides the borough that birthed them, their similar flows, fashion and laid-back styles were a potential recipe for a rivalry. Instead the men have enjoyed a kinship over the years, even collaborating on songs like “Brooklyn” and “Money Goes, Honey Stay.” Still, even among friends, there’s room for healthy competition, and it’s rare that MCs give away hit records to other rappers, but that’s exactly what Jay Z did for Fab.
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Loso recently was a guest on Ebro In The Morning and he detailed the story of how he got “Make Me Better,” the third single from his album From Nothin’ to Somethin’ (19:32). “Jay Z had “Make Me Better” at first, and Jay was like ‘this is not my record. This is a Fab record.’ He gave me the record with Ne-Yo singing on it and when I heard it, I was like ‘Oh, OK. I see what you mean.’ From my previous radio records…Jay probably could do anything, but he just felt like it was a record that’s up [my] lane. It might have been a little soft for Jay and made him look like he was trying to go radio or something, so he felt like it was in my space, and I’m one of the guys that can be diverse in my music.”
As it turned out, Jay Z’s instincts were right. “Make Me Better” would spend 14 weeks at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Rap Tracks chart and reached number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also was named the best song of 2007 by VIBE magazine.
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Elsewhere in the interview, Fabolous discusses his new mixtape, Summertime Shootout 2, how he has stayed relevant for 15 years, the respect he believes artists should afford one another in public, and more.