Most of the time a producer presents him with beats, though he may also give a producer a song or beat idea. There will be a track, and Jay will figure out a flow and a concept for it, if it isn’t already in the track. He’ll then start pacing around the studio, mumbling to himself. He calls it his ‘rain man’ thing, and it’s a mental exercise where he creates lines and will keep saying them over and over to himself, until he has them memorised. He’ll construct a whole verse or pattern in that way. Once he has the verse memorised, he’ll go into the booth to recite it. From a recording point of view, this works much better than someone reading from a piece of paper, and having his mouth tilted to one side.
“Jay doesn’t write his ideas down, he does everything in his head. But because he has eight different jobs in one day and there are many distractions, to help him memorise an idea he’ll pull out his laptop and will recite it into GarageBand, without worrying about the quality or background noise. It’s like a sketchpad, he’s just reciting things into it, so he won’t lose them. And then he’s onto the next thing. It’s a great tool. I’ve given him Dictaphones and things like that, and he loses them — but he’s not going to lose his computer! He’ll input lyrics, and also musical ideas sometimes, like he may be humming a chorus melody that he’ll then ask a female to sing.”
(Source: soundonsound.com)
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