If one were to ask about the greatest posse cut of the past five years, it wouldn’t be surprising to see many fans throw Danny Brown, Kendrick Lamar, Ab-Soul, and Earl’s “Really Doe” into the mix. Stemming from Brown’s acclaimed Atrocity Exhibition album, many have often wondered how such an epic and unexpected collaboration came to manifest in the first place. Last night, Danny Brown engaged with fans during a Persona 5 Twitch stream, and he proceeded to shine a light on some interesting behind-the-scenes insight into “Really Doe.”
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“Really Doe was me with two verses,” reveals Danny. “It was never a posse cut. That was my song. That was never a song with a lot of people on it like that. But then one night I wake up, that’s when I’m in LA mixing the album with Ali. And Kendrick send me a take and it’s ‘Really Doe’…I think when he did it, he wanted it to be me and him. That was his whole intention. So I’m like fuck it, whatever, but when I kept listening to it I was like ‘damn.’ He set up to body me kinda though. That’s how I looked at it. I gave him a song I wanted him to do, and he [did a verse to ‘Really Doe’ instead].”
“I was hanging with Ab-Soul a lot then, and I was at Ab-Soul’s crib, so I played him the shit,” he continues. “Ab-Soul did a verse. That was cool, we put it together. But then Ab-Soul got mad at me cause he thought it was just me and him. When I asked him to do a verse to that beat, he didn’t know Kendrick and Earl would be on that song. He got mad at me. On some funny shit. That [Do What Thou Wilt] song with Da$h, I was the verse on that shit! He cut me off and put Da$h on it.”
“Everybody felt that Kendrick’s verse should go last,” reveals Danny. “To this point, people in the studio were saying Earl’s verse was trash. That’s the crazy part. I remember being in the studio and we putting that shit together and people telling me Earl verse trash. Kendrick verse need to be last. I kept listening to the song. You know me, I’m a battle rap fan, a rapper fan. I wanted this shit to be about sparring, and this n***a Earl bodied all of us!”
If that wasn’t enough, Danny Brown also reveals that he and Kendrick have an unreleased track together, in which they both body an Alchemist beat with no hook — while he doesn’t have any plans to officially release it, he promises he’ll play it for the fans one day. Check out the videos here, and sound off – do you agree with Danny assessment that Earl massacred the competition on “Really Doe?”