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The man accused of fatally shooting rapper Takeoff last month outside a Houston bowling alley sought information about using fake plane tickets to obtain an expedited passport in his efforts to flee the country, and repeatedly made online searches about whether he was a suspect in the case, prosecutors alleged during a court hearing Wednesday (Dec. 15).
But attorneys for Patrick Xavier Clark, 33, say their client never had any intention of leaving Houston and he will likely pursue self-defense in the case, as he has asserted his innocence.
“We feel comfortable that when the time is right that Mr. Clark will have a valid and meritorious claim for self-defense,” Letitia Quinones, one of Clark’s attorneys, said after the hearing. She declined to provide additional details on this to reporters, but during the hearing, she suggested that Clark only fired after someone shot at him first. Police say Clark fired the first shot.
Takeoff was shot in the head and back as more than 30 people were leaving a private party at the bowling alley around 2:30 a.m. on Nov. 1. Houston police have said the gunfire followed a disagreement over a “lucrative” game of dice outside the bowling alley, but that the 28-year-old rapper was not involved and was “an innocent bystander.”
Clark was arrested on Dec. 1 on a murder charge.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Clark’s attorneys had sought to have his bond reduced from $2 million to $100,000. But state District Judge Josh Hill was initially hesitant to reduce his bond, believing he could be a flight risk and that Clark’s “Google searches for fake tickets cause me a great deal of concern.”
During the hearing, Houston police Sgt. Michael Burrow testified that a review of Clark’s cell phone after his arrest found he had made online searches for fake plane tickets. Prosecutors suggested these searches were tied to Clark’s efforts to get an expedited passport. Investigators also found multiple searches on his cell phone in which Clark looked at news articles about the shooting and whether he was named as a suspect, he said.
“It was my belief he was preparing to flee the country,” Burrow said.
Surveillance video showed Clark was holding a wine bottle in one hand when he fired his gun, Burrow said. Clark left the bottle near the scene of the shooting and fingerprints found on the bottle were later used to identify him. FBI sources had also pointed to Clark as being at the shooting.
Quinones denied Clark was trying to leave the country after the shooting, saying that before his arrest he had canceled a previously scheduled trip to Mexico and that on the day of his arrest he had been looking for an apartment to rent in the city.
Hill agreed to reduce Clark’s bond to $1 million if additional security requirements could be met and he agreed to consider next week additional information from Clark’s lawyers about possibly lowering it more, possibly to $300,000. Quinones said she hopes Hill lowers the bond to $300,000 as anything higher cannot be afforded by Clark’s family.
Clark’s father, Joseph, testified that his son works as a DJ and also promotes night clubs but that he has never been financially stable, still lives at home, borrows his truck to get around and wouldn’t have the resources to flee to another country.
During the hearing, prosecutors played a recording of a call Clark made on Dec. 6 from jail to his family in which he could he heard saying that the $2 million bond “can be made right now.” Prosecutors suggested Clark has had access to large amounts of cash in his work as a DJ and with night clubs. But Quinones said Clark indicating he could pay the $2 million was just boastful claims from “a young man talking and talking too much.”
Police have said that during the shooting, another man and a woman suffered non-life-threatening gunshot injuries, and that at least two people opened fired. Police said investigators are still trying to track down witnesses. The gun used to kill Takeoff has not been recovered, Burrow said.
Born Kirsnick Khari Ball, Takeoff was the youngest member of Migos, the Grammy-nominated rap trio from suburban Atlanta that also featured his uncle Quavo and cousin Offset.
Migos first broke through with the massive hit “Versace” in 2013. They had four Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, though Takeoff was not on their multi-week No. 1 hit “Bad and Boujee,” featuring Lil Uzi Vert. They put out a trilogy of albums called Culture, Culture II and Culture III, with the first two hitting No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart.
Amazon Music announced Wednesday (Dec. 14) that 21 Savage will perform on the upcoming season finale of Amazon Music Live.
The superstar rapper will take the stage on Dec. 29 for the new series’ final show of the year, which will be hosted as always by 2 Chainz following Amazon’s Thursday Night Football. According to a release, the Grammy winner is expected to perform songs from Her Loss, his new collaborative album with Drake, as well as debut new and unreleased tracks.
Premiering in October on both Prime Video and Amazon Music’s Twitch channel, the inaugural season of the Thursday night concert series has also included performances by — and exclusive interviews with — Lil Baby, Megan Thee Stallion, Kane Brown, Lil Wayne and Anuel AA. Plus, Anitta is slated to take over for this Thursday’s episode (Dec. 15) ahead of 21 Savage’s finale.
Her Loss debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and spent four weeks atop the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart after its release in early November via OVO Sound and Republic Records.
Following his new album with Drake, Savage — who was named an honorable mention in Billboard‘s Greatest Pop Stars of 2022 — also collaborated with Nas on their fiery single “One Mic, One Gun.”
Nick Cannon sat down for a new interview Wednesday (Dec. 14) to discuss his late son Zen’s battle with a rare form of brain cancer.
Speaking to Dr. David Agus, the Masked Singer host shared that, initially, he brought Zen for a checkup when the baby started breathing abnormally. “But when we took him to the doctor, they noticed that his head was larger than it should’ve been at 2 months. And then that was the first sign that there was something occurring,” he explained in the new episode of The Checkup With Dr. Agus.
“They did a lot of tests; they didn’t let him leave the hospital,” Cannon continued. “And so you can imagine, you think you’re taking your son in to get a checkup for, at the worst I was thinking asthma, you know? And to know that he gets diagnosed with brain cancer, that was a shock.”
Cannon further explained that his and mom Alyssa Scott’s primary focus from then on was the 2-month-old’s quality of life, from letting the doctors put a shunt in to drain the fluid from his brain to deciding to forgo further, more aggressive treatment like chemotherapy.
“They pretty much told me that, ‘Best-case scenario, your son could live to 3 or 4 years old,’” he said. “And so instantly when I heard that, I was like, ‘OK, quality of life. I want him to have the best existence that he could possibly have.’”
Sadly, Zen died in December 2021 at just 5 months old. Since then, Cannon has welcomed four more children with four other women, and Scott announced last month that her second baby with the star is on the way — bringing his ever-growing brood to a full dozen.
Cannon’s episode of The Checkup is now streaming on Paramount+. Additional episodes feature interviews with Oprah Winfrey and Maria Shriver, Amy Schumer, Ashton Kutcher and his twin brother Michael and more.
Watch a preview of Cannon’s discussion with Dr. Agus below.
Post Malone has secured one more achievement before the end of the year. The rapper’s video for “White Iverson” has officially entered YouTube’s Billion Views Club, the platform announced on Wednesday (Dec. 14).
The Van Alpert-directed visual sees Malone singing the sultry rap track in the middle of the desert. The other major character in the video is the flashy white Rolls Royce Ghost EWB, which does several doughnuts around the sparse and dusty terrain. At various points, Malone is joined by a friend who rides atop a Mercedes Benz G Class — also in white — throughout the expansive desert.
The video is the fourth in Malone’s catalogue to hit the billion views mark. “Rockstar” entered the billion views club in June 2022; “Sunflower” with Swae Lee (1.9 billion) and “Congratulations” featuring Quavo (1.4 billion) were the other videos to previously enter YouTube’s billion views club.
“White Iverson” — the debut and lead single from Malone’s first studio album, Stoney — served as his 2015 breakout hit. The song spent 30 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, where it made its debut in September of 2015, and peaked at No. 14 on the all genre chart in January 2016. The tune enjoyed further success on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, peaking at No. 5 and and spending a total of 26 weeks on the tally. The track was originally released through Malone’s SoundCloud, also in 2015.
Revisit Malone’s “White Iverson” video above.
Raised in the Philly hood, Meek Mill never attended an Eagles game growing up, much less tossed footballs inside the team’s practice facility.
Given the chance to show off his arm, the 35-year-old rapper and philanthropist lined up some area kids and had them go deep on the same field where the best team in the NFL trains. Meek Mill short-armed a wobbly pass that sailed about 20 yards and was hauled in by a kid to resounding cheers.
Let’s just say Jalen Hurts’ job is safe.
“He’s almost as unathletic as I am,” Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin teased Meek.
Meek Mill and Rubin shared laughs Tuesday (Dec. 13) at an outing arranged to brighten the day for children from families caught in the criminal justice system. Rubin, who recently sold his stake in the Philadelphia 76ers, co-founded the Reform Alliance, a non-profit organization dedicated to probation, parole and sentencing reform in the United States. Meek Mill, whose well-publicized prison sentence for minor probation violations became a lightning rod for the issue, is co-chairman of the organization.
His case grabbed the attention of criminal justice reform advocates after a judge in Pennsylvania sentenced him to two to four years in prison for violations of his probation conditions in a decade-old gun and drug possession case. He was incarcerated for months before a court ordered him released in 2018. Meek Mill successfully resumed his recording career and recently held a 10-year anniversary concert that celebrated his debut album Dreams And Nightmares. He’s been a big opening act of late, performing the title track and underdog anthem before Eagles games and at the World Series.
“I’ve got purpose on top of everything I’m doing,” Meek Mill said. “Before I went to prison, of course I was famous, of course I was making money feeding my family, but the purpose I have now, it actually started from the way people supported me.”
Meek Mill formed a friendship with Rubin and the billionaire became an ally in freeing him from prison. While Meek Mill was in prison, activists, celebrities and demonstrators rallied in 2017 for his release. “When I seen that with my own eyes, that type of support, which I never had in my life, I wanted to make sure I give that same support back to the world,” Meek Mill said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Born Robert Rihmeek Williams, he is now free of the court supervision he’s been under most of his adult life.
To their credit, years after Meek Mill’s release, the rapper and the mogul have remained steadfast in advocating for criminal justice reform. The Reform Alliance said the group has been responsible for 16 bills passed in 10 states that resulted in changes to probation and parole laws. Meek Mill was even honored in 2019 in his hometown of Philadelphia for his work as a criminal justice reform advocate and as a musician.
“We’ve actually created a pathway for 650,000 people to get out of the system already,” Rubin said. “And we’re just getting started. It’s hard to make change.”
Meek Mill and members of the Eagles including Darius Slay, Jordan Mailata, coach Nick Sirianni and general manager Howie Roseman mingled with 35 kids, took photos and ran combine drills. The kids signed honorary one-day contracts with the team.
“You’re all 12-1 for the day,” Sirianni said.
The kids moved across the street to the Wells Fargo Center and quizzed Philadelphia 76ers coach Doc Rivers on the usual hoops-themed topics. Allen Iverson or Steph Curry? Who’s your favorite player? But there were more serious inquiries about how to land internships and how to push through in a life that can be littered with hardships.
“You have the right to happiness and to smile and do everything you want in life,” Rivers told the kids. “These people here, Meek, Michael and everybody back here are here to tell you that there’s people in your corner. We’re going to fight for you. Fight for your families to make sure that one of you may be sitting here some day giving the same speech. Or one of you can be a doctor, a lawyer, an athlete. Whatever you want.”
Megan Parke spent almost three years in prison and gave birth to her son, Amir, while in jail. She was freed when he was 2½ years old and the family has settled in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Parke was on probation and hit with a technical violation, which in Pennsylvania means she had specifically violated one of the terms of her probation plan. Parke, who still has two years left on probation, said she was lucky the judge didn’t send her back to prison. She said Reform has offered her resources that could aid her and her case should problems arise in the future.
“That’s him right there,” she said, pointing at the 5-year-old boy running around the NFL complex. “He’s just so excited. These days just really mean a lot.”
Those memories are part of what it’s all about for Meek Mill. He missed Eagles games as a kid but once attended on a school trip a taping of The Randall Cunningham Show. “That was a highlight I’ll remember forever,” Meek Mill said. “With kids, I’m always doubling back, make sure I touch back to the people just like myself.”
Diddy is full of surprises. After surprising the internet with the birth of his daughter, Love Sean Combs, the father of seven, dropped a short notice single alongside PARTYNEXTDOOR, titled “Sex in the Porsche.”
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The track comes by way of Diddy’s Love Records imprint, in partnership with Motown Records, and is the second single from his highly anticipated fifth studio album, set to arrive in early 2023.
“Sex in the Porsche” follows Diddy’s 2022 single, “Gotta Move On” featuring Bryson Tiller, which topped Billboard’s Adult R&B Airplay Chart. “Gotta Move On” was the first release from Diddy’s Love Records, a label that marks his “next chapter” with the aim of “creating timeless R&B music with the next generation of artists and producers,” the 53-year-old told REVOLT in May.
Recruiting game-changing R&B acts like Tiller and the elusive Canadian singer-songwriter PARTYNEXTDOOR could prove a successful strategy in Diddy’s efforts to bring attention back to the genre space.
Diddy has been a headline darling this week outside of the music, following the news of his daughter’s birth, reportedly with 28-year-old cyber security specialist Dana Tran. The announcement came as an all-around shock, considering Diddy’s highly publicized relationship with City Girls member, Yung Miami.
The rapper and talk show host, born Caresha Romeka Brownlee, took to Twitter to voice her frustrations regarding rumors that she’s Diddy’s side chick. ““I’M NOBODY SIDE BITCH LETS JUST MAKE THIS CLEAR ON THIS GOOD MONDAY! I don’t come 2nd to no bitch!” she wrote.
Soon after, Diddy himself chimed in on Twitter adding, “@yungmiami305 is not my side chick. Never has been, never will be. She’s very important and special to me, and I don’t play about my Shawty Wop. I don’t discuss things on the internet and I will not start today.”
The “Sex in the Porsche” visualizer features creative direction by famed choreographer Lauriann Gibson and stars rapper Rubi Rose. Stream it here.
Sean “Diddy” Combs is motoring on with “Sex In The Porsche,” the hip-hop mogul’s new collaboration with PARTYNEXTDOOR.
Diddy is listed as co-writer (with PARTYNEXTDOOR, real name Jahron Brathwaite) and co-producer (with Nyan) on the smooth cut, the second lifted from Diddy’s forthcoming album release.
The first, “Gotta Move On” featuring Bryson Tiller, arrived in October, part of a three-pack which included the Queens Remix and the Kings Remix. “Gotta Move On” went to No. 1 on Adult R&B Airplay Chart in November, the first No. 1 for both acts on the survey.
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According to reps, Diddy’s new album is scheduled to drop early next year through his Love Records imprint, a partnership with Motown Records.
“Sex In The Porsche” is accompanied with a visualizer featuring creative direction by Lauriann Gibson, and starring rapper and model Rubi Rose.
Diddy got his year in music underway by hosting, executive producing, and performing at the 2022 Billboard Music Awards.
Later, Diddy and Tiller performed “Gotta Move On” alongside Teyana Taylor at the 2022 BET Awards in June. During the ceremony, the mogul was presented with the show’s lifetime achievement award, which featured an introduction by Jay-Z and a tribute performance from Mary J Blige, Lil’ Kim, Shyne, Busta Rhymes, The Lox, Faith Evans. Ye and Babyface also gave speeches during the event.
“Music has always been my first love; Love Records is the next chapter about getting back to the love and making the best music of my life,” he said of his latest venture. “For the label, I’m focused on creating timeless R&B music with the next generation of artists and producers. Motown is the perfect partner for my album, and I’m excited to add to its legacy.”
Since his career took flight in the ‘90s, the producer, songwriter, rapper, label executive and head of Combs Enterprises, has scooped three Grammy Awards, won ASCAP’s “songwriter of the year,” and collaborated with a host of hitmakers, including Mary J. Blige, The Notorious B.I.G., Mariah Carey, Jennifer Lopez, Boyz II Men, Britney Spears and Kanye West, among others.
He’s not just a hitmaker. Diddy was in the news recently with the announcement of the birth of his seventh child.
Diddy took to social media on Tuesday (Dec. 13) to shoot down rumors about his relationship with Yung Miami.
“@yungmiami305 is not my side chick. Never has been, never will be,” he tweeted. “She’s very important and special to me, and I don’t play about my Shawty Wop. I don’t discuss things on the internet and I will not start today.
“So think what you want,” he added minutes later in a follow-up tweet before concluding, “But know that if you do something to hurt mine, I’m gonna to come to your house and we’re gonna talk about it like human beings. LOVE.”
The mogul’s statement on Twitter appears to be in response to the City Girls rapper’s heated back-and-forth the day prior with DJ Akademiks over Diddy’s newborn daughter Love Sean Combs. (In a tweet, the DJ accused Diddy of having a “side baby on his harem of side chicks” — a statement Yung Miami didn’t appreciate, firing off, “I’M NOBODY SIDE B—H LETS JUST MAKE THIS CLEAR ON THIS GOOD MONDAY! I don’t come 2nd to no b—h!”)
In June, Diddy publicly confirmed that he and Yung Miami were casually “dating,” but kept the terminology around their relationship vague, subsequently referring to himself as both “single” and “just taking [his] time at life.” (The Bad Boy Entertainment exec also has yet to reveal the identity of baby Love’s mother.)
Read Diddy’s defense of Yung Miami below.
So think what you want. But know that if you do something to hurt mine, I’m gonna to come to your house and we’re gonna talk about it like human beings. LOVE.— LOVE (@Diddy) December 13, 2022
Feeling the Love! Diddy took to social media over the weekend to share the news that he’s welcomed a newborn daughter.
“I’m so blessed to welcome my baby girl Love Sean Combs to the world,” the rapper tweeted. “Mama Combs, Quincy, Justin, Christian, Chance, D’Lila, Jessie and myself all love you so much! God is the Greatest!”
Diddy didn’t reveal the identity of the baby’s mother. Love is Diddy’s seventh child, including the five he shares with late girlfriend Kim Porter, who died in 2018 after a battle with lobar pneumonia. The sixth, 15-year-old Chance, was born to stylist Sarah Chapman just months before Porter gave birth to twins Jessie and D’Lila.
The birth of Love is also one of many reasons Diddy and his family have to celebrate these days: His latest collaboration with Bryson Tiller, “Gotta Move On,” just hit No. 1 on Billboard‘s Adult R&B Airplay chart last month. His 23-year-old son Christian also landed a top five hit of his own (under his stage name King Combs) on the Rhythmic Airplay chart earlier this year with “Can’t Stop Won’t Stop” featuring Kodak Black.
In a joint interview with Billboard, the father-son duo opened up about Christian growing up in the spotlight, reinvigorating Bad Boy Entertainment, keeping Porter’s legacy alive and more. “I’mma tell you straight up, he did this on his own,” Diddy said of his son’s musical breakthrough. “I don’t even care if it’s hard to believe because the proof is there, he has the receipts to prove it.”
Read Diddy’s joyous announcement of baby Love’s birth below.
I’m so blessed to welcome my baby girl Love Sean Combs to the world. Mama Combs, Quincy, Justin, Christian, Chance, D’Lila, Jessie and myself all love you so much! God is the Greatest!— LOVE (@Diddy) December 10, 2022
Over the past several years, songwriter-producer Rogét Chahayed has played an integral role in crafting memorable hits for some of music’s biggest names. Despite studying classical music, his work spans genres including pop, rap and R&B — and often blends all of them together, as has been the case with songs including Travis Scott and Drake’s “Sicko Mode,” Doja Cat and SZA’s “Kiss Me More” and DRAM and Lil Yachty’s “Broccoli.”
His ability to create sticky melodies has also led to working with Halsey, Calvin Harris and BTS, among countless others, and in 2021 he earned his first nomination for the Grammys’ producer of the year, non-classical. But in 2022, some of Chahayed’s greatest success came instead from sampling decades-old and recent hits alike, leading to another banner year for the Los Angeles native. He worked extensively with Jack Harlow, executive producing the rapper’s Come Home the Kids Miss You album, which yielded the Fergie-sampling “First Class” that spent three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 (Fergie’s “Glamorous” also reached the top of the chart in 2007). Soon after, he teamed back up with Doja Cat to co-produce “Vegas,” paying homage on the Elvis soundtrack to Presley’s “Hound Dog.”
“Coming from a guy who never really uses samples, it was a very interesting approach for me musically to be like, ‘Oh it’s not all about you. Let’s just make some this sound good and amplify that,” says Chahayed.
Below, the Grammy-nominated hit-maker tells Billboard about the creation of “First Class,” the moment he knew it was going to take off and why samples and interpolations have defined the charts for so much of 2022.
How did the idea to sample Fergie’s “Glamorous” come about?
Around April 2021, Jack presented us a list of songs and was like, “I want to find ways to chop these up and put them in [Come Home the Kids Miss You],” because they’re a big reflection of the stuff he grew up listening to. One day, Angel Lopez, who was also an executive producer on the album, pulled up Fergie’s “Glamorous” because Jack had sent it to him and chopped up the main hook where she spells it out. We basically just had the sample and some drums to start, and Jack came up with that hook. We added everything else after, which is sort rare — most of the time, people have the entire beat done and then write a hook. We dissected it piece by piece and took our time to find the right groove for it.
Do you remember the first time that you heard the original? What was your instant reaction to the idea of sampling it?
I remember being a senior in high school or a freshman in college, and at the time, I was studying classical music, so I wasn’t really in my “I love hip-hop” or “I love pop” phase yet. But I remember hearing the song at that time and then when they pulled it up again, it was a crazy flashback. That was a really cool thing to be able to bring something familiar back and not only get people who grew up listening to the song but also put the new generation onto the stuff that we listened to when we were younger.
You’ve said previously that you wanted to make “First Class” feel like it was “going somewhere.” What was the process translating that idea into a finished product?
When the sample was being chopped, it was pitched down, so it gives it this older kind of texture. Jack had such a specific mindset about structure — every single sound and drum and snare that you hear on the entire album, he approved. In the beginning, it was a struggle to find what we wanted. I tried a bunch of different synths and then, with the help of [co-producers] Jasper Harris and Charlie Handsome, we inspired each other. Jack loves organic instruments. You hear a lot of piano, strings and real bass lines on the album because we really wanted to bring the idea of having riffs in a song again. That’s just identifiable music. We didn’t want to make another album with a bunch of trap beats. We shot for something different.
When we started finding the groove of the song, we had the idea of making it feel like a rap song, but the structure is very pop: You have your verse, your pre-chorus where you put those beautiful strings in and give this little classical touch, and then it goes into the hook. So when the second verse happened, Jack was like, “I want to do something different here. I want it to switch up.” We made a new section where we took the kick out. It’s cool because it leaves the listener waiting for that hook to come back. It pulls you in.
Were there any other notable challenges throughout the process?
The sample clearance was actually smooth. Jack has such a good reputation, and between his team and everybody’s connections, it was pretty easy to get that part of it cleared. The worry was there for every song that had a little sample in it, even if it was an interpolation [or] a melody, but luckily, everyone involved in the original — Fergie, [co-producer] Polow da Don, [co-writer] will.i.am — was so cool and grateful to be a part of it. I think the biggest concern was in the beginning, before we found what the song was going to be. Every day something different was being added and things were changing. I was like, “I don’t know, this song just feels so smooth, almost laid-back in a way. Are people really going to party to this?” I had my doubts. Over time, the more we kept listening to the finished product and getting other people’s opinions on it, I was starting to see the big picture. And then, when Jack filmed the little snippet that he put on Instagram that went viral — so viral that people were ripping the audio off the post and making TikToks with it — that’s when all my worries went down the drain. We were so proud of what we did and that we were able to take that smooth groove to the top of the charts.
You’ve mentioned how hands-on Jack is in the studio. Tell me what it was like working with him.
I told him, “The way that you operate in the room reminds me of when I used to work for Dr. Dre.” He thinks and operates like a producer. I’ve worked with a lot of artists who are very passive; Jack is concerned about the outro or the intro and we’ll sit there and contemplate for months, like, “Is this right? I don’t think this is right. Okay, let’s switch it.” There are songs that we liked for 2-3 months, and then 6 months later, he’s like, “I can’t believe we had that in there.” It was an unbelievable thing to experience such a talented young artist like him. He was very accepting of everybody’s process and combining it with his own view.
You also co-produced Doja Cat’s “Vegas” from the Elvis soundtrack. How much can the process of making a sample work vary from song to song?
The situation has to be good. You gotta do justice to the [original] song. You don’t want it to be some kind of meaningless, whatever attempt at making a hit. It’s like having a weapon: You have to use it with the right intentions and only in the right circumstances. You don’t just want to go out there and show and tell everybody about it. With “Vegas,” we were luckily set up in that situation by Baz Luhrmann, who directed the Elvis movie. He had gotten in touch with Yeti [Beats], who is one of my close friends and production partners working with Doja, and he hit me up the day I found out that I got the producer of the year nomination last year.
Baz is such a cool dude. He was like, “I don’t want it to be an Elvis song. I want it to sound like a Doja Cat song.” Yeti had the sample chopped up and he put a beat to it. I put in the staccato piano and little cool twangy guitar things and little bells and stuff that make her feel like this is her world still, but we’re living in that universe of Elvis. When you’re in the situation of sampling a song, you’ve got to honor the content in the sample, somehow. Jack plays along so well with “First Class” and dances around the spelling of “glamorous,” and that’s what makes it so cool — he’s not trying to steal the show. And with Doja, it was playing with the [lyric] “You ain’t nothing but a hound dog,” but switching it up to her thing. Coming from a guy who never really uses samples, it was a very interesting approach for me musically to be like, “Oh it’s not all about you. Let’s just make some this sound good and amplify that.”
Why do you think that samples and interpolations have had such an impact on popular music and the charts this year?
It’s an interesting time because it’s nothing that hasn’t been done before. We hear samples all the time, we hear interpolations, we hear melodies from the past come back to life in a new form. But I think something about this past year … so many songs are being brought back. I think it’s fun and refreshing to tap into that. We were locked away for a year, and I feel like during that time, music and life was kind of this stale, uncertain moment. Once everybody was back outside, it was very energetic. Everybody wants to be reminded of the good times, because when you hear a song that you grew up loving, you’re instantly taken to another place.
Do you think the trend will continue into 2023?
I think it’s going to continue on for even longer. I’m an avid listener of everything that comes out just to hear, “What are people thinking, what are they doing?” I feel like I’ve been hearing a [sample] every week. I think it’s going to keep going. And I think it’s going to be another great option [for creating] something that’s going to hit right away. Tap back into your past. Tap back into the things that you love — with your own twist.
A version of this story originally appeared in the Dec. 10, 2022, issue of Billboard.
