Tierra Whack got some help from Meek Mill to fix her verse on Beyoncé's 2019 song "My Power."
While visiting Hot 97 to promote her new album World Wide Whack, the rapper explained that an engineering malfunction almost ruined her verse on Bey’s song.
Whack spoke about the collaboration around the 28:30 minute mark of the video below. Ahead of the collaboration, Whack mingled with Jay-Z and Beyoncé at a post-Grammy Awards party thrown by Janelle Monáe. Days later, a member of Beyoncé's team contacted the Philadelphia rapper for a collaboration.
"They're like, 'Yeah, she wants you on ["My Power].' I was like, 'Alright, send the song.' [The team member added] 'Oh, it comes out in two days, too.'"
She continued, "So we played the song, and I was like, 'Alright, this beat's crazy.' I wrote the verse in, like, 20 minutes. Me and [producer] Kenete [Simms] were looking at each other like, 'Is it good?' It came so easy. We didn't want a rush a song with Beyoncé. We don't want to rush any song, but a song with Beyonce? You gotta be careful."
The verse got the stamp of approval from Beyoncé, who made it the song's opener, but Whack and Simms wanted to hear the song's second draft before it was released.
"We sent our rough, and then we were like, 'Yo, before it comes out, we need to hear what the engineers are doing on that side, 'cause we wanna make sure and just be comfortable,' right? We don't want to hear no effects and stuff," Whack recalled. "So they sent it back last-minute. Somebody on that side sent it back and... my verse was off. Like, off-beat. It made me sound like I didn't know how to rap."
The drafted version "hurt" Whack so much that although she "didn't want to seem ungrateful," she wanted to prove that she sounded better than what the engineering mishap offered.
"Yeah, I said something. It took me a few hours, 'cause I wanted to just make sure I said it right," Whack said. "So, I didn't get that right to contact her. I think Hov switched his number, he had a new number. By the time I texted him, it went green."
Whack has Jay-Z's digits today, but at the time, she had to go through her "cousin," Meek Mill, as her middleman, who ensured that Whack's verse was adjusted.
"So I reached out to Meek, I'm like, 'Yo, this happened. And I need you to say it for me,'" Whack explained. "So he hit Hov, and I guess Hov tapped B, like, 'Yo, Whack saying this verse is not right.' And then she made a few phone calls, and it was over with. It was good, it was all figured out."
Whack confirmed that there were no hard feelings from the Carters.
"Then Hov hit me and he's like, 'I'm glad you spoke up, because your shit gotta be right,'" she concluded. "But the whole world at this moment, y'all know I can rap. But I was like, I gotta be [right]. No, I was like, 'Does this engineer have ears?' It was so bad, like, it was so off. I change flows like three times, so it all has to match."
"My Power" also features Nija, Yemi Alade, Moonchild Sanelly, DJ Lag and Busiswa, some whom also appeared in Black Is King, the visual companion to Beyoncé's 2019 album, The Lion King: The Gift.
Whack just released her full-length debut World Wide Whack this weekend.
