Apparently Jay Z has beef with Neyo for writing hit song for Mario, prior to signing under him at Def Jam.
Appearing on Shannon Sharpe’s Club Shay Shay podcast, Ne-Yo explained the perplexing situation. In 2004 Jay Z became the president of Def Jam. In 2005 Ne-Yo signed to Def Jam. Prior to signing to Def Jam wrote the song ‘Let Me Love You’ for Mario.
“Shortly before the Def Jam situation happened I leaned on songwriting,” Ne-Yo said. “I was just a songwriter so I wrote a song for Mario, [‘Let Me Love You’], so this song goes on and stays at number one for 12 or 13 weeks, something like that, becomes one of the most played songs in radio history.”
“The first time I got to meet JAY-Z, I’d been signed for a couple months at this point. I walk into the room and he’s in there. It’s in L.A. Reid’s office. I walk in, ‘Hey it’s nice to meet you.’ He like, ‘Man, why you give that damn song away?’ Nice to meet you too bruh, cool. I’m Ne-Yo. ‘Why you give that damn song away?’ To this day, he yell at me about giving that damn song away. But I was just a songwriter when I wrote it, I didn’t write it for myself.”
With 30 songs to ever reach Billboards top 100, 12 top 10 hits and two #1’s, its safe to say that if “Let Me Love You” was performed by Ne-Yo it wouldn’t make or break the “So Sick” vocalist. But Ne-Yo believes he couldn’t have performed the song bettter than Mario.
“I’ll be the first to tell you that Mario got chops that I don’t,” Ne-Yo said. “I ain’t got no shame in that, but I know that I got chops too. So yeah. I feel like it woulda worked either way.”