Baauer Says Azealia Banks Was Supposed to be Featured on "Harlem Shake"

This situation gets getting odder. So instead of what it initially looked like (Azealia Banks dropping her remix of Baauer's "Harlem Shake" a day after it stormed the iTunes charts), her version could have possibly been verses she spit to be on "Harlem Shake" before it was released as an instrumental.

Not Available Lead
Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

Not Available Lead

This situation gets getting odder. So instead of what it initially looked like (Azealia Banks dropping her remix of Baauer's "Harlem Shake" a day after it stormed the iTunes charts), her version could have possibly been verses she spit to be on "Harlem Shake" before it was released as an instrumental. Taken from Baauer's interview with The Daily Beast:

“I’m not happy about it,” says Baauer. “She had a version that we were going to release because I’m a big fan of hers. We knew she likes to beef with producers. So she laid something on ‘Harlem Shake’ and it was so/so. Didn’t love it. And that was a little while ago, and since all this video stuff happened, our plans all changed. Because of that, we decided to just release the song on it’s own with no vocal version. So we told her, ‘Please don’t release your version.’ And she said, ‘Well, I’m going to put it online anyway.’ And we said, ‘Please don’t. We’d really like it if you didn’t.’ And she did.”

Aside from him also speaking on what he was trying to accomplish sonically with "Harlem Shake," Baauer also let Daily Beast know a few things: his forthcoming EP with LuckyMe will have collaborations with AlunaGeorge and Just Blaze (maybe those tunes are what these "Stacks" and "Toca" MP3s are?), possibly A$AP Rocky, and that he's had meeting with Columbia Records.

We don't like to harp on it, but again, we tried to tell you to keep your eyes on this man.

Latest in Music