Quick Hit: Jay-Z Really Needs You to Turn His Headphones Down, Thanks

"Yo turn the muh'fuckin noise up / We'll get right into the proceedings this evening
Headphones are distortin, bring it down a lil' bit / Okay - now we workin wit it"

The homie D-Mac and I have a running joke about rappers saying "turn my headphones up" in song intros. Ever since "Eminem" did it on "Cleaning Out My Closet" complaining about headphone volume has become the cool thing to do. It's a phenomenon I've written about at length.

You never hear a rapper say, "Yo, turn the snare down in my headphones. Jesus fucking christ, who needs that much snare? All I can fucking hear is snare!" So when D-Mac emailed me with, "Yo, I found a track where Jay-Z wants to turn his headphones down!" it's hard to overestimate how stoked I was.

Sure enough, on the intro to Scarface's "Guess Who's Back" Jay first tells the sound engineer to turn his headphones up, then changes his mind and asks to have them turned down because there's distortion. And just like that we have what I believe to be hip-hop's only "Yo, turn my headphones down" example. Ever. It's a historic day for RefinedHype Nation.

UPDATE: The homie Peter Iyitor comes through with another example. J. Cole opens "Song for the Ville" with a "you can turn me back down, shit, I'm good." We're up to two example in all of hip-hop history - anyone got any more?



See Also: Will You Just Turn the Fu**king Headphones Up Already?