As fans of The Carters (Beyonce & Jay Z) jointly and individually continue to go apesh*t over the duo’s newly released joint effort, ‘Everything is Love’ (June 16) more and more details around the creation of the secret project are being unveiled.
The latest peek into the album’s baking process comes courtesy of veteran producers Cool & Dre, who are credited on three of the project’s nine tracks. Taking to ‘Rolling Stone’ to dish on how Jay and Bey were secretly recording their first duet album while simultaneously preparing for their ‘On the Run II’ world tour, look inside to see the hitmakers detail the creation of some of set’s fan favorites:
RS: How did you get involved in the album?
Dre: …probably eight, nine weeks ago, Cool and I started sending [Jay Z] ideas. He emailed right back after he heard it, “This shit’s crazy. Keep feeding me.” After a couple records, we gave him one song that he loved so much he was like, “You in L.A.? Come over.”He invites us over, and in a 10 or 11 hour span, we cut around five or six records. Towards the end, he started playing me records that him and Beyoncé cut. There was one record that Cool kept saying, “Yo, Dre, don’t leave there without playing him ‘Salud!'” So after he played a couple Beyoncé duet records, I was like, “Yo, can I play you one more?” It was just the beat, but he was like, “What the fuck? You wait until the end of the night to play this shit? You crazy?”
As I was laying [the hook], Beyoncé walks into the studio. When it was done, she played it three or four times, and she’s like, I love this, this is great. He’s like, “Yo, we’re going to Paris, if you guys want to come out, you should come out.” We stayed there with B and Jay for two and a half or three weeks in Paris.
RS: What was the atmosphere like in Paris?
Dre: They were rehearsing for the tour at this stadium, and they bought out the owner’s suites upstairs and set up studios upstairs. While we were working out, we would look out the window and watch Jay and B prepare for the tour, rehearsing, all the lights. Once he let us know his focus, we started working on that too. “Salud!,” the bonus cut, was the first record Beyoncé cut. She cut that before we went to Paris. That’s when we knew we were in the right place. To have a relationship with Hov don’t mean shit with Beyoncé.Cool: We were in a special zone. When you look to the side and you see the stage and you see magic being put together, it was straight inspiration. That’s when “713” and “Summer” were birthed. We were getting out as much creative heat as we can.
RS: You made “Summer” from a Leon Michels sample?
Dre: He had that one section that spoke to us immediately. Big up Leon. He’s an unbelievable musician. Me and Cool are sample guys. That’s what we do. It’s so great now in 2018 to work with guys who can create original music and we can sample them.
And this whole album was made after that session in Paris?
Dre: People were still recording parts an hour and a half before the last show in London, three hours before the album was released. They were still putting last second touches on. The album got turned in three hours before it got let go.The last couple days was no sleep, in the studio non-stop. The record gets sent off to mastering, then they hear, and want to change this, this, and this. You master the record, they ask for changes. Everything was crunch time. They’re doing this as they rehearse for this humongous tour. This shit is not a game. They don’t have rules. The album got turned in three hours before it got let go.
Dre: We were in Paris for a couple weeks. Jay told us to stay close; we’re gonna stay close. Beyoncé’s team were like, “things are going good, we’d like for you guys to continue working. Can you come out to Cardiff?” I gotta salute my brother Cool, in this game you gotta make sacrifices. Cool missed his daughter’s graduation from eighth grade. That’s my goddaughter, too.
Cool: We did Cardiff for a week. That was a crucial week, when the album was really fine-tuned and finished.
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Click here to read the interview in full.