André 3000 is opening up about the controversy over his verse on the Kanye West ‘Donda‘ album track “Life Of The Party,” a song that 3 Stacks also thanks Drake for later leaking during Drizzy’s feud with Ye.
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While speaking with Popcast, The New York Times‘ music podcast, André 3000 revealed why he asked Kanye West to remove his verse from his ‘Donda‘ album song “Life Of The Party.” He said, “The Kanye song… I knew he was working on this album called ‘Donda‘ and I knew he had lost his mom, just like I lost my mom. So, I knew that subject matter better than anyone. It’s hard to explain to anyone, like until you lose a parent, you can’t even explain to anyone.”
André 3000 continued to explain that Kanye West sent him the whole ‘Donda‘ album, asking him to listen to all the songs and give him some comments and feedback. He said he went through the whole project and “gave notes on what he felt about the songs.” He said Ye acknowledged the feedback and asked him to contribute to the album.
However, André 3000 initially did not hear anything he wanted to hop on, which is when artist and actor Fonzworth Bentley, born Derek Watkins, chimed in and played some other songs that Kanye West was working on, one of which happened to be “Life Of The Party.” He said he liked the beat and the sample, calling it “soulful” and noting he could write something to it.
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He said, “I felt like something that was speaking to his mother would be awesome. So, I kind of just had the approach of knowing that his mother and my mother — if you believe in the Bible, Heaven, and all that kind of stuff — they were possibly in the same place. So, I was speaking as if I’m speaking to his mom to tell a message to my mom. So, it was this kind of messaging through a third-party situation. That song opened it up for me to be able to say things that I couldn’t have said without Kanye. So, his strength of asking me to be on the album got me to speak more about that because I never would have wrote that verse.”
The conversation then segued into Drake leaking Kanye West and André 3000’s “Life Of The Party.” André said, “Yeah, unfortunately. The history of it now, I know that Kanye and Drake had some beef and words and they were beefing at the time. I don’t know how it happened. I don’t know. This was so odd. But, Drake got a hold to the song before Kanye was able to put it out and Drake released it on his radio show. Like, he just put it out. I was like ‘Woah.’”
Speaking on Kanye West and Drake’s beef at the time, André 3000 said, “They were kind of going at it and I actually didn’t understand why he did it. I don’t know if he under—because what people don’t know too is that at that point, Kanye and I weren’t really in agreeance of how the song would be released. So, I’m not sure if it was going to even come out.”
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André 3000 explained, “So, I don’t know if Drake found out that the song was not going to come out and was just saying, ‘Well, I’m going to put it out.’ Because it was a thing about—Kanye was at a point in his life where he didn’t want any curse words on the album. And I said, ‘Yeah, I’m cool with man. Yeah, I’m totally fine with no curse words, but take me off the song. Because, I’d written it a certain way.’ And I was cool with beep versions, but I said, ‘You have to put the dirty version out too.’”
He continued, “And he, at that point, didn’t want to put a dirty version out and said, ‘I told my daughter that I would not have any curse words on this album,’ and I was like, ‘Hey, man. Say no more, man. The kids, for sure. So, just take me off.’ And we weren’t in agreeance how the song would come out and finally, Drake puts it out. So, kind of have to thank Drake for letting that song see the light of day.”
He also added a disclaimer, noting, “And I want to clear something up too. A lot of people think that Kanye took the song and then did put the disc part out without me knowing about it. I’d heard the disc part and me and Kanye had a conversation about it. I had my feelings about it. I was like, ‘Man, do you really want to do this on this type of song? It’s kind of like going and shooting up your mom’s funeral. I don’t know.’ He felt the way he felt at the time and he put the disc verse on it. Because I heard the original verse. So, I want to clear it up to the fans. A lot of fans were like, ‘Oh, man. That was disrespectful that he just put the disc verse and André didn’t know about it.’ No, I knew about it, but it was just his decision.”
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