Jay-Z Riffs Off Brooklyn's Mehanan Street Band

Tommy "TNT" Brenneck has been trotting the globe with the likes of Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Amy Winehouse and the Budos Band, and as if that weren't enough, Brenneck and some fellow soul purists took their lo-fi aesthetics to another level with a new venture: the Mehanan Street Band. Brenneck's production deep soul debut is merely a 7" -- titled 'Make the Road By Walking' -- recorded modestly in his bedroom on Mehanan Street in Bushwick -- which is what the band is all about. And then Jay-Z came knocking.

"It was a fluke," Brenneck explains to Spinner Jigga's use of 'Making' for the rapper's 2007 smash, 'Roc Boys (And the Winner Is)' from the 'American Gangster' album. "Diddy's production team the Hitmen picked up the 45 at Big City Records and Diddy and pitched it to Jay-Z."