Jay Z’s Master Tapes Were Never Lost, Just Blaze Claims

An engineer who worked with Jay Z during the Roc-A-Fella era is trying to extort the rapper and his label for payment. Chauncey Mahan claims that he’s been holding onto some of Hov’s master recordings which were previously thought to be lost, but Jay’s longtime producer, Just Blaze, is not amused by Mahan’s stunt — especially since backup copies of those recordings are safely in storage.

Mahan is reportedly hoarding master tapes that were created between 1998 and 2002. Last week he contacted Live Nation and threatened to auction them off if he wasn’t paid a $100,000 “storage fee,” but the LAPD shut down that transaction when they detained him near a storage facility.

Just Blaze, who worked with Jay during those recording sessions, had more than a few words to say about Mahan on Twitter, revealing that he ruined plenty of music, but wouldn’t win this battle.

“Chauncey stayed effing up. Big part of the reason Hip and I brought in Guru. This guy ruined every tape transfer for the Dynasty Album,” Just Blaze tweeted. “If you listen to Bleek’s version of “is that your b***h” you’ll notice it’s in mono. Why? Bc Chauncey. Lol. If u listen to “get your mind right” from Dynasty, You’ll notice all the choruses after the first one fall in the wrong places. Bc Chaunce.”

One fun fact though: Mahan’s constant errors made room for Young Guru to make his mark.

“We had to re record “streets is talking” vox. Why? Bc Chauncey. The Dynasty intro sample flanges the entire time.. Guess why!? Chauncey. We eventually got tired of it. I randomly ended up doing a session with this new engineer who called himself @Young_Guru.. He was young, understood the sound, and knew what he was doing. Brought him in on a Hov session as a test and it clicked. Rest is history.”

And if Mahan was really hoping to make a fortune off those tapes, looks like he might be completely out of luck. “Oh. And I have backups of just about all of those files Chauncey tried to extort for. Dummy,” Blaze added. “They reside in a fallout shelter in an undisclosed location.”