On “A Week Ago” Jay said, “You from Marcy and Marcy don’t raise no rats. You know the consequences of your acts.” Again, it’s his words coming back to haunt him. You’re not going to call the police, because you said, “Marcy don’t raise no rats.” You not gon' call nobody. I'ma do this and you gonna take this L. It’s all in the details.

I’m just saying keep it as cool as De La Soul. That was just about making it rhyme, because I knew I wanted to say “reverse déjà vu"—it’ll be déjà vu to you, but the other way around.

I took that from “Friend Or Foe” but I flipped it. where I’m like, you don’t have goons lined up in adjoining rooms no more. Your goons are Becky and Tom who work at Roc Nation and went to Harvard. Those adjoining rooms are offices, they’re not hotel rooms. Again, it’s just flipping the old lines and making them new, to where his new and current life is at.

If this was a real story, this kid would have to live with that for the rest of his life—people at Jay’s shows shouting for him to do these records. Making fun of that situation about my pops who I didn’t get to know because you got rid of him. And now you’re making money off of it and have the whole world reciting the lyrics. People play a Jay Z playlist and I gotta hear about when you killed my dad and laughed at it. We’re not gonna have that. If this was a real story, that’s how somebody would feel. You took mine, now I gotta take yours.

In Jay Z’s earlier music, he called himself Iceberg Slim. Iceberg Slim was a black author from L.A. He was a pimp, hustler who wrote these great books, hood classics. Him and Donald Goines are like neck-and-neck for the top hood authors.

Based on your records, you’re the coolest, most stone-faced. Nothing rattles you, you’ve been through it all. You don’t break—you’re starting to break! I’m in front of you, ready to stick you for your goods, I’m bringing up all these memories from 20 years ago, and I’m looking at you rattling. This money done changed you.

The idea was, he was so disrespectful to the dude, so this is me giving him that back. It’s the same tone and the same attitude.

Jay Z was hustling in Virginia in real life. I didn’t know which town in Virginia so I looked it up. It was Newport News so I added that in there. I just wanted to make it as authentic as possible, so it really feels like a story.

In “Friend Or Foe ‘98,” the guy had a Jamaican accent. All that ties into the story. It lets you know off the rip, this dude was really his father.

I tried to take a few parts from the first and second “Friend Or Foe.” On the original Jay goes, “You draw, better be Picasso, you know the best.” So I’m taking it right back to that. If I’m in the room with him, it’s his words coming back to haunt him.

I’m trying to turn your chest into a mess, like a Picasso painting.

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