Paul Wall has one of the greatest feature verses of all time on Kanye West’s “Drive Slow.” Every four bars is so evocative, woven with such deep imagery. “It’s a star studded event when I valet park, open up my mouth illuminates the dark.” Or “The disco ball in my mouth insinuates I’m ballin’” is another stellar one-liner. My favorite is the colorful alliteration, “Ridin’ somethin’ candy-coated, crawlin’ like a caterpillar.”
The song is so great, he managed to get Ye’s Late Registration cut on his debut album The People’s Champ. How did he pull that off if it’s not his song? Apparently, Jay-Z ensured it happened. Recently, Paul Wall spoke to The Art of Dialogue, where he revealed how he managed to nab the classic Kanye cut on his own record. The Houstonian explains that Hov was the president of Def Jam while Wall was at Atlantic. Through some pleading on Atlantic’s end, Jay dusted his hands and let it happen.
Paul Wall Explains How He Got “Drive Slow” On His Debut Album
The “Swangin’ in the Rain” rapper adds that artists and labels alike had to be paid for album appearances. Moreover, an artist’s fee depended on whether or not they were a gold or a platinum artist yet. Given that he hadn’t reached that status yet, it wasn’t guaranteed to work out. However, Hov cleared it anyway.
“Only thing Jay-Z said was, ‘Man, only thing I want you to do is pay Kanye West whatever he charges for a beat,’” Paul Wall recalls. “‘I want you to pay him for that ‘cause he’s letting you use the beat. So just to be fair, I’m not gonna charge you a clearance fee for his verse, but to be fair for him, pay him what he wants for the beat.’ So we paid for the beat.”
Eventually, he runs into Hov at the MTV Video Music Awards, where a photographer asks them to take a picture together. Immediately, Jay-Z makes it clear that he didn’t forget the favor he pulled off for him. “The first thing [Jay] say, ‘Hey, you know I looked out for you, right? You know you owe me, right, for that Jay-Z clearance?’” Paul Wall says, with him responding, “‘Whenever you ready to collect, I got it waiting for you. Whatever I owe you.’ … I’m still waiting for him to call me on that favor.”
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