That’s How You Let The Beat Build: Popular Songs You Probably Didn’t Realize Kanye West Produced

“’03 Bonnie and Clyde” by Jay Z feat. Beyonce

//www.youtube.com/v/copiznIfV3E?hl=en_US&version=3

Damn. Thinking back on the 850 collaborations Bey and Jay have worked on together since they started dating, it’s always interesting to go back to the first one, and yes, that would be “’03 Bonnie and Clyde.” With its ode to Prince and Tupac and a great beat, it showed that Kanye could continue delivering after receiving major exposure from his work on The Blueprint. The song did great on charts all over the world, but it did create a little drama between Jay, Bey and Toni Braxton, who claimed they sampled a Tupac song that she had already planned to sample and were trying to take food out of her family’s mouth. Kanye responded:

“I had no idea about Toni Braxton’s [song]. She can’t act like ain’t nobody ever heard ‘Me and My Girlfriend’ before. People hear the song all the time. I can [understand her complaint] if it [was] an original song.”

Jay would later say that had he known she wanted to use the same sample, he would have done the duet with Braxton…Who knows, maybe they would have ended up the “It Couple” had he swapped Bey for Toni…