Picasso Baby
| "Picasso Baby" | |
|---|---|
| Song by Jay-Z from the album Magna Carta... Holy Grail | |
| Recorded | 2012–13 |
| Genre | |
| Length | 4:05 |
| Label | |
| Writer(s) |
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| Producer(s) | |
"Picasso Baby" is a song by American hip hop artist Jay-Z from his twelfth studio album Magna Carta... Holy Grail. It is the second track on the album and features additional vocals by The-Dream and Zofia Borucka Moreno. The song was produced by Timbaland and Jerome "J-Roc" Harmon and contains a sample of "Sirens" by Adrian Younge. Following the release of the album, the song peaked at number 91 on the Billboard Hot 100 based on downloads only.
After collaborating on The Blueprint 3 in 2009, Timbaland and Jay-Z parted ways due to creative differences, but reunited again while working with Justin Timberlake on The 20/20 Experience. When Beyoncé Knowles started working on her next studio album in late 2012, Jay-Z invited Timbaland to handle some of the production on it. While both in the studio, Timbaland played Jay the instrumental for "Picasso Baby". At the time, Jay-Z didn't have plans to record a whole album, but after they made the song, the two decided to "go for it". In an interview with BBC Radio 1, Jay-Z stated that "Picasso Baby" "built the sound of" Magna Carta... Holy Grail and Timbaland ended up handling most of the production on the album. According to Jay-Z, while the two have recorded many songs in the past, it was not until MCHG that they got "the chemistry" to collaborate for a whole project.
Producer J-Roc described "Picasso Baby" as "just New York". He told XXL that he and Timbaland "were really just feeling the city, the energy that it gives out" and were inspired by the "numerous different cultures and different dialects or sounds."
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