5. “Flower Child” f/ Kendrick Lamar

Nitty Scott, MC: ““Flower Child” I just wrote that on my own. I didn’t really write it with putting Kendrick on it in mind or anybody in particular. “Flower Child” itself was just a very sincere, intimate letter essentially to my fans and to my growing audience. It was honestly the easiest record I have ever written. It required no thought whatsoever. And I’m a writer and I enjoy the process of sitting there and conceptualizing something and really tweaking it and crafting it to perfection. That happened with “Flower Child” but the words just poured out of me so easily. It was really unreal. It was just this crazy adrenaline rush that happened.

“When I heard that beat, I was swept away. I was on the couch in the living room, I remember. [Laughs.] Jules [Nitty’s manager] was there. A couple of other heads were there. We were all just chillin’ and I just put on the headphones and I just got lost. I think I wrote it in like an hour. That doesn’t usually happen. I am such a perfectionist that it’s like I’ll work on a record for a month if I have to. This one just poured out of me so easily. It was something that was weighing heavily on my heart at the time. It was something that I needed to say but I really didn’t find a way to say it until I heard that instrumental. When I heard that instrumental, it gave me the ability to really let those emotions lose.

“I had left the hook and this bridge, kind of third verse open. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with it. I came up with the name “Flower Child” because the beat itself was so mellow and so chill. It just make me feel like an hippie. [Laughs.] I called it “Flower Child” and that’s what led me to say, ‘Hold on. I think Kendrick on here would be a good look. Who better than a Black Hippy on the “Flower Child” song?’ It just seemed so cohesive. His sound and what he brings to the table is being very melodic. It just complimented so well.

“I reached out and before it was very general like, ‘Hey, we gotta work together.’ But now I had a very specific thing that I wanted to do. The next time he was in New York he hit us up. We went to the studio. We were there for a couple of hours and he sat with the record. Talked with me about my vision and kind of what I saw for it. And I really didn’t instruct him in any way. It wasn’t like, ‘This is what I want for the hook.’ Not at all. I just let him hear it and I told him where I was coming from on the record. And you just do you. He sat there and he came up with the hook and the verse in a couple hours. He laid it down right there. We had our record. We had our baby. It was very fun.”