The Year’s Biggest Single Was Nearly Given To Another Artist
We're glad Kendrick got this one.
Look at any music chart right now and odds are you’ll see the same track sitting at the top: Kendrick Lamar’s ‘HUMBLE’.
The Compton rapper’s single currently has a stranglehold over the airwaves, even managing to knock Ed Sheeran’s ‘Shape Of You’ from the #1 spot on America’s Billboard Charts last week.
The man behind ‘HUMBLE’ is legendary hip-hop producer Mike WiLL Made-It (the same guy who made Rae Sremmurd’s ‘Black Beatles’ and Beyonce’s ‘Formation’), and he’s just revealed to NPR that the beat wasn’t even intended for Lamar in the first place.
Rather, Mike WiLL created the beat for Atlanta rapper Gucci Mane, someone he has a long history with.
“I made that beat [last year] when Gucci Mane was getting out of jail; I made it with him in mind,” he said.
“I was just thinking, damn, Gucci’s about to come home; it’s got to be something urgent that’s just going to take over the radio. With ‘HUMBLE’, I knew that beat was going to capture a moment. It just felt real urgent.”
“I ended up not doing it with Gucci and I let Kendrick hear it. I was thinking, if [Lamar] gets on this it’ll be his first time being heard on some[thing] like this… it kind of has an NWA/Dr. Dre feel, an Eminem kind of feel. He heard the beat and he liked it.”
So ‘HUMBLE’ ended up on DAMN., and the rest is music history.