The thing about this song is I was about to leave.
I put my bookbag on.
We was in the studio for about 5 hours, jamming.
DJ Khalil is one of the guys, the understudies of Dr. Dre.
And he’s like, "Hold on!" And then he pressed a button and it was like...
And then you hear the...
I'm like, “Oh shit.”
And then the drums came in...
I'm like, “Hold up.”
Took the bookbag off, sat back down and I just went in.
I wanted to create a song that was very prideful of the East Coast, particularly New York.
I wanted to create an anthem that we could play at the Giants’ stadium.
We could play at Madison Square Garden.
We could play at Barclays Center.
And just turn up to.
Man! “Run It Up” just came to my mind.
It was like one of them things where I just let God flow through me and
I just became a vessel at that point. Just for his words.
And that's just what I kept saying.
When I started freestyling on the beat, that was the first thing I could think about and it felt so right.
I wanted to do a call and response for the people to be able to say something.
I'm definitely ready for the Mr. East Coast title.
We have JAY-Z, of course.
He's the king.
You know what I’m sayin’?
And we had Biggie Smalls.
But, it ain't nobody else that's doing it on my level, that's still repping the block.
I still live in Harlem.
I want the kids to see me.
I moved my moms out, but I'm still in Harlem.
Just the Ground Zero, I was speaking New York terminology.
This is for all the people that’s fallen.
You know, the underground dudes that can't come out. I'm talking for them.
I'm talking for the have-nots.
It goes back to the whole "Trap Lord," "Hood Pope" theme and growing up I always seem symbols.
I went to Catholic school and always seen crosses.
My uncle was a preacher and in a way, I feel like a preacher now.
I'm telling everybody to put your prayer hands in the sky and bow your head for A$AP Yams.
The Bible is nothing but stories of what happened in the past for us to learn from them.
Good and bad.
You got Revelations.
You got all types of stuff.
My rap book, my album, you can see the same thing.
The illest mosh pit I've ever seen in my life would have to be in Australia.
It was during a festival I did and you know, I told like two people to come on stage
because I seen them representing.
They was doing something that just caught my attention, and I was just like, “Yo! Let's go! Y'all come on stage!”
But the moment they started climbing over the barricade I knew it was over because everybody was gonna follow.
So everybody followed them, jumped on the stage and the stage collapsed.
So I don't mosh pit that much anymore.
Send him through the ceiling, meaning send him to heaven.
Throw a nigga off the building, that's on some 'Juice' shit.
That's like Bishop falling off the building.
That's another East Coast reference.
It’s just what was happening. It’s what’s happening now.
That's one of those lines that just came to me
and it fit so perfect like a puzzle with the flow and everything.
But just the messaging behind it.
Like yes, we can turn up, turn up, turn up, but I'm gonna definitely slide in that
little bit of those seeds in there so it could just spark in your brain and grow into something.
I switched the flow up towards the end because I told Khalil to add these guitar riffs,
which he totally disagreed with.
He was like, "Yo, it's going against everything else in the beat. It's not musically right.”
And I was just like, “It feels right to me. Let’s just do it.”
And then he added the… which reminded me of some old Run DMC shit.
I started pointing at the people in the crowd and getting them involved, and people be like, “Woof!”
They say the Woofs.
And it just kind of gets everybody excited.