Mike Will Made-It says Jay-Z’s “Beach Is Better” was originally for Big Sean.
The producer chopped it up with the All The Smoke podcast to discuss music and his career. At one point, Mike revealed that Hov’s track was intended for the Detroit emcee. However, Sean never got back to Mike and the beat wound up on Jay’s Magna Carta Holy Grail LP.
“Alright, so, ‘Beach is Better’ started off: Big Sean had ’10 to 10,’” he revealed. “He wanted a beat around ’10 to 10.’ So we had did a couple of beats around the a cappella voice note that he had. And ‘Beach is Better’ was one of them…So my boy Mars had sent me a couple of options. And I was like, ‘Yo, man, this beat hard.’”
“Next thing you know, Mars sent me over the beat. I’m in the studio with Miley [Cyrus] and its two people from Coldplay right here that had pulled up just to hear different beats. Then I heard Miley say an adlib, and I put an effect on it and sent the beat over to Big Sean. We put the extra juice on this, this gotta be the one. But I never heard from Big Sean. Then, the next week, I had a session with Hov, so I was locked in with Hov the whole week. And then, BOOM.”
Jay asked Mike what Sean said about the beat and wondered if he had already claimed it. After the award-winning producer said he didn’t hear back from him, Hov let Mike Will know he was standing on business. “We gon give him seven business days,” Mike recalled Jay saying to him. Mike reached out to get confirmation from Sean on what he was doing with the beat. He recalled the Finally Famous artist telling him he went with a different beat and, well, the rest is history.
Jay-Z’s “Beach is Better” was a part of his twelfth studio album, Magna Carta Holy Grail. The LP was released on July 4, 2013 and featured an array of special guests. Justin Timberlake, Nas, Rick Ross, Frank Ocean and Beyoncé appear as musical guests on the LP. Timbaland, Pharrell, Swizz Beatz, Boi-1da, Hit-Boy, Mike Dean, J-Roc, No I.D., The Dream, and Mike Will handled the production. Magna Carta debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, despite being met with mixed reviews.
