I went to The Juilliard School for jazz piano.
It’s like a weird song by this dude Erik Satie that we used to study.
It’s a very sad song, but in some weird way it’s happy. And it’s major.
I know certain progressions are very recognizable,
so I remember when we were getting the record cleared they hit me and was like,
“Yo, did you sample this piano?”
I was like, “Nah.”
I was trying to create this weird, “Bach-ish” piano, which reminded me of like, "Crucifixus."
Descending chords in a cycle.
I was just trying to tap into something like that.
Not trying to be corny, but underwater. Like it may be drowning.
I was riding with my homie.
We were riding from the airport and he was playing me some music
that he was working on with some friends or something.
It was a small, drum interlude.
I said, “Yo, did you make that part?”
And he was like, “Yeah.”
I was like, “Yo, send me that song.”
I cut it up, and then sped it up.
Then I take out the lows because I want to add a kick.
And then I take out a little bit of the highs because I knew I wanted to add high hats.
And so then I add this flanger.
Logic has a good stock flanger.
It gives things a squishy sound, and I just like that.
Without it, it sounds like this.
With it.
This piano loop, which I ended up converting to audio, so I can cut it better.
That kind of piano would just drop hard into this.
And I just started layering some drums on top of it, so I added this kick.
Added some high hats, which took me a little bit just to find the right bounce for high hats,
but I just added these.
This clap, which I like to color my claps blue.
Layered all that up with the piano.
There was this lead at the time I used to love to use.
I've used it in so many beats.
But I was like, "Oh, it sounds like singing."
I used this lead.
And I just made it go along with the harmony.
I decided it needs some singing on it.
Anybody that knows me knows I sing all the time, and I'm pretty terrible at it,
but I sing my heart out and I sing very, very loud.
This is what I originally did.
So I autotune it up, and I add some reverb.
Yeah, these two things made it special to me ‘cause it seemed like call and response.
I like to layer keyboards, so I layered this thing from FabFilter.
And I didn't really quantize it because I just didn't want it to be quantized.
Then I layered this.
I added this bass, which is like, man, a lot of my records that I place have no 808s.
This has no 808, so I use this bass from Sylenth.
It's called Buka.
It's a cool sound pack I got from a friend that has these weird ass presets from Massive.
And I literally just added bass to open it up.
Left the piano in.
And that’s how we got the record.
I was doing a lot of Kehlani's music, so I was on the road with her.
We had a radio show in Phoenix or something and I saw Boogie.
I was like, "Yo, bro I went to school in New York.
I know you got a lot of respect in the city. I make a lot of Kehlani’s shit.”
He was like, "Alright, cool. Come up to the hotel room and play me some beats."
I was like, "Cool."
I remember he was just sitting and I played the beat.
He said, "Bitch, I'm drowning."
And then he was like, "Wrist so icy."
I was like, "That's kind of hard!"
He was like, "Yeah, can you send me that beat?
I’m gonna record this as soon as I get back."
He played me it, and I was like, "Tight."
Then he hit me later and was like, "I got Kodak on it."
I was like, "Tight."