Demos being shared with the masses is obviously not the preferred outcome for artists. Still, here we are getting stoked about a newly surfaced track alleged to have originated from the sessions surrounding Beyoncé and JAY-Z's surprise joint album Everything Is Love.
Monday, an alleged rough draft for lead single "Apeshit" surfaced, perHipHop-N-More. Though this one—which is Hov/Bey-less—is credited to Migos as a group, Quavo and Offset are the only two listed in the credits for the EverythingIs Love version, which used their ad-libs and backing vocals as part of the beat's backbone, a la "This Is America."
Bey and Jay ultimately kept large portions of the Migos demo in the final cut, including the bulk of the chorus—from "Stack my money fast and go" to "crowd better savor"—before changing up Quavo's "this is what we made for" to the more couples-oriented "I can't believe we made it." Bey's verses also have a lot of carryover, and why wouldn't they? The lines are great.
The nine-track surprise drop also features contributions from Mike Dean, Boi-1da, Nav, Pharrell, !llmind, and more. In an interview with Complex, !llmind revealed how he landed a Bey and Jay collab. "[Boi-1da] told me about it two or three weeks ago, a little less than a month ago he told me about it," he said. "I didn't know what it was called, I didn't know when it was coming out. The details were very much a secret, but I knew it was coming soon."
As far as the final track, "Heard About Us," goes, !llmind wasn't even aware he was working on a Bey and Jay song until after the fact. "That was just another collaboration," he told Complex. "A melody that I put together, and Boi-1da heard the melody and made a beat out of it. Then he brought in the homies Vinylz and Jahaan Sweet to do some keys and some more work on it. And that was it."
Though the album first launched as a Tidal exclusive, you can now find it on Apple Music and other streaming services.
