Had Mike WiLL Made It had his way, Kendrick’s very first solo No. 1 single would’ve been either his or Gucci Mane‘s.
Speaking to NPR, the producer revealed that he created the instrumental around the time Gucci had been released from jail in 2016.
“I made that beat when Gucci Mane was getting out of jail; I made it with him in mind,” Mike says. “I was just thinking, ‘damn, Gucci’s about to come home; it’s got to be something urgent that’s just going to take over the radio.’ And I felt like that beat was that.
“I ended up not doing it with Gucci and I let Kendrick hear it. I was thinking, ‘if Dot gets on this it’ll be his first time being heard on some[thing] like this.’ At the same time, it kind of has an NWA/Dr. Dre feel, an Eminem kind of feel. So I thought, let me see if Dot f**** with it. And he heard the beat and he liked it.”
That’s not all: the track was originally slated for Mike WiLL’s Ransom 2, but TDE decided to keep it for DAMN.
Mike also tells a crazy tale on how “DNA” was made, which explains the sudden beat switch in the middle of the song:
“He went the whole way [through] and then he just started rapping a cappella. He said, ‘I just want to see if you can put some drums around this.’ Just imagine him a cappella rapping the second half of ‘DNA.’ and I had to build a beat around that. I didn’t want the beat to just sound like a regular boom-clap, boom-clap. I wanted that s*** to sound just as crazy. I wanted it to sound like he’s battling the beat.”
The entire article can be read here.
