Jay-Z – "Takeover" (2001)

Do not bark up that tree

That tree will fall on you

The entirety of “Takeover” is rapped over a sample taken from the Doors’ “Five to One,” which seems like a very unlikely record to use as the foundation of a hip-hop track.

Doors’ drummer John Densmore didn’t get it either when he first heard “Takeover” – in fact, he didn’t get rap generally.  “I was like, ‘What is this stuff? There’s no melody,’” Densmore told Rolling Stone magazine in 2013, sounding like every old white guy on the planet – except for 2 or 3 lines, of course, who bought a ticket on the hip-hop train decades ago.

Jay Z heard about Densmore’s comment, and got in touch with him. “Jay Z wrote me a letter saying, ‘Hey, we’re fighting the authority just like you guys did back then,’” Densmore said. The rapper also sent him a Def Jam T-shirt.

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“Takeover” is featured in the fifth episode of the fourth and final season of Succession, the HBO series that is ONLY THE GREATEST TELEVISION SHOW IN THE HISTORY OF TELEVISION SHOWS.  (As soon as I finish this post, I’m planning to watch the final episode of Succession.   I can’t tell you how depressed I’ll be when that episode ends – I wish they had made 40 seasons of the show instead of just four.)

The storyline of Succession features a number of attempted business takeovers, so it makes sense that the producers chose to use a snippet from this record on the show’s soundtrack.  

“Takeover” was released on Blueprint, Jay-Z’s sixth studio album, which was recorded while Jay-Z was awaiting trial for assault and gun possession.  It was released on September 11, 2001.  (Yes, that date is correct.) 

“Takeover” was one of the four tracks on the album that was produced by Kanye West.  (West was strictly a producer at that time.  He released his first solo album three years later.). It’s one of the most famous diss tracks in the history of rap music, responding to insults from Nas and Prodigy with a withering stream of invective.

Click here to listen to “Takeover.”

Click here to buy the record from Amazon.