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Jay-Z is celebrating the 30th anniversary of his “Dead Presidents” single with the release of the OG version on streaming services for the first time on Friday (Feb. 20).
“Dead Presidents” was released on Feb. 20, 1996, independently on Roc-A-Fella Records and served as the lead single heading into Jay’s Reasonable Doubt debut LP. To celebrate the single’s 30th birthday, the Roc Nation mogul unleashed a limited-edition vinyl, CD and cassette tape version of the Ski Beatz-produced original on his website.
“Dead Presidents” prominently samples Nas’ “The World Is Yours” along with Lonnie Liston Smith and A Tribe Called Quest on the drums.
Jay ended up pivoting and rapping new verses over the Ski beat for “Dead Presidents II,” which made the final cut for Reasonable Doubt over the original. Roc-A-Fella co-founder Kareem “Biggs” Burke took credit for pushing Hov to re-record “Dead Presidents” during an interview with Rob Markman.
“He had the verse and it was actually my idea for him to just put it over the original verse,” he said. “He would spit that verse a capella all the time, like we riding somewhere. I was like, ‘Just put it on the same beat.’”
Hov also added the umlaut back to his stage name once again, which had fans speculating about a potential re-issue of sorts for Reasonable Doubt to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Brooklyn rap legend’s debut.
Reasonable Doubt arrived on June 25, 1996, and debuted at No. 23 on the Billboard 200, where it spent 18 weeks on the chart.
Stream the OG “Dead Presidents” below.
