So he replied that he already sent the file. But Platt thought to himself that the rapper must have read the message through a BlackBerry or iPhone and didn't see that he sent the attachment. He wanted the file immediately, Platt remembered. Platt hit the gym for an hour, and when he returned, Jay-Z already responded. Pay attention to the track and the hook.' 'Hey, man, I think I got an idea for you that could be big,' he recalled writing about the record, which he couldn't obtain an instrumental of right away. The file arrived the next morning in his inbox, and he immediately shot a message off to Jay while preparing to go to the gym. Platt asked them to e-mail him the record later that night. They hesitated until they all listened to it yet again and agreed it was a Jay-Z song waiting to happen. He asked Hunte and Sewell-Ulepic if he could have the song without their verses. When it came in again, God just came to me, and I dialed in on what it was saying in the chorus, and I was like, 'This is a Jay-Z song.' ' 'Then that hook came in, and I was like, 'Wow, that hook is huge.' The same hook that made it to the finished version. 'Something was clicking, but there was something I couldn't get,' he said. ' 'Cause sometimes you can hear a song and it's special the first time you hear it, but then you hear it three or four more times and it's not.'Д«ut after hearing it again, Platt asked the pair to play it once more. 'I keep my feelings close to my chest,' he said.

Platt recalled calmly asking them to play the number again. After a few songs, they played one particular track produced by Al Shux that was a rough demo of an R&B-tinged track dedicated to their hometown. They ate, chatted and eventually listened to music the duo had composed. He called two songwriters signed to EMI - Brooklynites Angela Hunte and Jane't 'Jnay' Sewell-Ulepic - who invited Platt to dinner.

'My weekends in New York are the worst, because all the people I work with do their own thing or go out of the city, so I'm bored out of my mind,' he said. The show was scheduled for Sunday night, but Platt arrived the day before, against his better judgment. Platt, a Denver native and Los Angeles resident, was in New York two years ago to see BeyoncГ© kick off the North American leg of her tour. The music-industry vet is largely responsible for helping Jay-Z notch his first career solo #1 with 'Empire State of Mind.' The track is also up for Record of the Year at this year's Grammys.

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