Khalid is itching to get into the studio with Kendrick Lamar after the two provided a winning formula on last year's pre-Damn drop "The Heart Part 4."
In a new interview with Montreality, Khalid discussed the song's humble beginnings and how it felt to hear the resulting collab for the first time.
"That shit's so dope," Khalid said of the track at around the six-minute mark in the video up top. "So the thing is, I was actually working on a song for my album that never came out. I had to just let the song be what it was, and one of the producers who was working on the song with me, they like screwed it up, they were like chopping it and working on it. They made this crazy beat. They text me, they're like, 'Yo, Kendrick heard the beat and he wants to cut to it.' I'm like 'What?' So I'm thinking like, oh, maybe it'll come out, maybe it won't. He killed it. Every time I listen to it I'm reminded of the fact that my voice is on one of my favorite lyricists' songs."
Khalid heard the final version of the song for the first time while leaving a concert. "I saw my Twitter just going up and I was like, 'Yo, what's going on?' and I was like 'Whoa, this song is out, it's living, and people fuck with it,' which is real dope."
Spending time with Lamar one-on-one inspired similar vibes. "He's really cool," Khalid said. "It was like meeting one of my influences which is dope even though I sing. He's awesome. He's real cool. He's a good dude. He was super nice. He was telling me how much he fucks with my music, and I mean obviously I was telling him how much I fuck with his music."
Khalid added that "hopefully" he and Lamar will get a chance to work together again. "I feel like that would be crazy dope," he said. Catch Khalid's full Montreality interview, during which he reveals his favorite Section 80 cut, up top.
We'll next hear from Khalid on Black Panther: The Album, a Lamar-curated collection of music from and inspired by Ryan Coogler's film of the same name. He's joined by Rae Sremmurd's Swae Lee on "The Ways", a new track that appears early into the album's 14-track running time, right between Schoolboy Q and 2 Chainz's "X" and Vince Staples and Yugen Blakrok's "Opps." The album drops Feb. 9.
