It was nearing the end of ‘Take Care,’ the making of the album.
When Drake had contacted me he said he wanted something up-tempo and something simple.
So it was a really last minute process.
And I put together something really simple.
It took me maybe like 30, 45 minutes to make the beat.
Sent it to him.
He ended up writing the record, recording it.
The day after, he said the song was already done.
You can do a lot with just four sounds, five sounds.
It's all about just putting everything together and everything kind of meshing
and molding.
In my mind I'm thinking bass is probably like the most important factor of a simple track.
For me the 808, the way the progression was of the 808 was really important and I find
that's what everybody remembers.
It sticks to them.
Came up with this 808 pattern right here.
A lot of distortion came out of the 808.
I have a bass slide in this pattern right here.
And then, I have this snare going.
Really simple pattern.
Straight to the point.
I actually got a clap from one of Boi-1da's old records.
It's called “Bill Gates.”
He produced that for Lil Wayne.
So I threw that in the mix.
We actually share sounds.
We actually share all of our sounds.
We have this producer named Jazzfeezy.
He used to collect a lot of sounds for us and we'd all kind of, between the three of
us, we'd all share all the same sounds.
The open hat is from “Bill Gates” as well.
Those two sounds playing up.
That’s a second open hat that I threw into the mix.
The last, pretty much the last group of sounds is just a clap loop that I found.
Like just put together.
You know pretty much everything on the beat has no effects.
I just used the raw sound.
The raw quality.
Other than the 808 I just added some distortion just to make it hit a little bit harder, you know?
You know, whatever I hear, the moment I hear it, if it doesn't sound right or if I feel
a little off about it, I'm changing it.
You know making sure things aren't too loud.
Everything sits well.
You know, there's space for the artist to come in and sing or rap.
When the record came out you know hyphy music...it was on the rise.
I think “The Motto” really helped gear all that music to rise as well with “Rack City.”
DJ Mustard coming on the scene and just killing it.
You know 808s, that influence.
That’s what I was kind of inspired by.
It worked.