Deja Vu?

"Unfold the Scroll"

Following on from the Chris Winston interview, I thought I'd post a little more background on how Nas actually went on to choose the 'Deja Vu' verse for 'Verbal Intercourse', as described by the artists themselves to XXL Magazine.

Verbal Intercourse

RAEKWON: We got in the studio, RZA played the beat. Nas was liking it, and he was trying different rhymes to it. We would sit there, and he'd say some of his shit. But he didn't really know which rhyme he wanted to say. and I was there, being like his little coach. And I was like, "That it son", he was like "that's it?", I was like "~~~~~, that's it!" But he had already went through 3 or 4 rhymes, and he couldn't really see which one he wanted it to be. But I heard it. Once it came out his mouth, I was like, That's it. Our main focus was just to make sure that he get his nut off and do what he gotta do. When he did his thing, I wrote something real quick, just to get this shit really looking like something. Ghost just put the cherry on the top. No hook, cause we didn't care about hooks like that. All we had was the "RZA, Chef, Ghost and Nas" which is more or less an introductory hook. Not really a hook.

NAS: Rae would come out to Queensbridge, I would go to Staten Island. We'd just ride and hang out all night. We didn't call each other to work. We called each other to hang out. Somehow we wound up in the studio. RZA had a couple of beats ready. He played them for me. I got on both of them. The other one never came out. I was honored to be asked to be on the album. Raekwon was ahead of his time. I knew Rae was a classic artist and the album was going to be a music classic.

GHOSTFACE KILLAH: Nas banged it out in one night. He went first with his shit. We all came after. Son was fast. Nas had a couple verses. He spit one verse to us and then another, not on the mic. He just asked "How this sound?" and then we picked the one he spit. He still had the pen in his hand and all the other shit, but son got in there and just threw an ill crack verse. He was on fire.