Drake Apparently Wrote ‘Nice For What’ While Playing Video Games
May 22, 2018
Drake's "Nice For What" is an intricate tightrope act. The song produced by Murda Beatz balances a Lauryn Hill sample, New Orleans bounce groove, and an intro from Big Freedia, but manages to make the disparate parts coalesce into one grand vision. Surprisingly, the story of how the song came together makes it seem like all of that complexity wasn't difficult to manage. In an interview on the Rap Radar podcast, Murda Beatz shared that he worked on the song with Drake while the rapper was playing video games.
"We were chillin' at Drake's house," Murda said. "We're playing [NBA] 2K, and we came up with the idea to get like a female artist, to sample a female artist. So I asked my manager Cory, like, 'Yo, what do you think?' He's like, '[Lauryn Hill's] "Ex-Factor" and then Drake's like, 'Oh, what part?' And we picked the part, chopped it up, I made the beat while he was playing 2K."
Murda also revealed that the first pass at the song was written in under two hours.
"He sat there," Beatz continued. "Wrote the shit in front of me. Cut the shit in front of me. Yeah, we had the shit done, beat and song, probably like hour and a half."
Murda Beatz is having a phenomenal year. He produced "Motorsport" for Migos and "I Do" on Cardi B's Invasion of Privacy, along with an entire tape for Smokepurpp. Hopefully when Scorpion drops, there are a few more Murda concoctions.
Watch the entire interview on Tidal.