Kendrick Lamar and Sounwave Literally Made ‘Damn’ Producers Sleep in the Studio
Kendrick Lamar’s Damn features an interesting array of producers, ranging from Mike Will Made-It, Sounwave, and Terrace Martin to Cardo and 9th Wonder. According to Sounwave, all of them likely sacrificed some comfortable sleep in order to make the cut—and that’s not merely more “team no sleep” rapper hyperbole. As Sounwave explained during a Q&A with GQ, producers literally camped out in the studio while helping create Damn.
“Once he got his whole brainstorming thing down and we knew the direction we were going we locked down the studio for months. Never left. Literally sleeping bags in the studio,” Sounwave said. “Every producer who was on this project literally had to sleep in the studio. We were not leaving until this was a perfect sound to us.”
In addition to revealing tidbits such as Kendrick and U2’s Bono regularly texting each other, the Q&A also delves into Kendrick’s creative process and clears up some of the speculation about unreleased music spawned by recent comments and tweets from Sounwave and Kendrick himself.
But what if I told you… that’s not the official version..
— Sounwave (@SounwaveTDE) April 14, 2017
It would appear any other “version” of various tracks Sounwave tweeted about is a reference to the various drafts of Damn. Plus Sounwave ended any such speculation about another album with a tweet on April 14, referring to leaked versions of Damn missing important interludes and vocal pieces. Sounwave detailed the evaluation process for a Kendrick album and how it impacted the release of Damn while speaking with GQ.
“We’ve done this project a few times; we had different versions of it,” Sounwave explained. “But until we got that one chill at the end of the last song and it just gives you that vibe that this is it, it’s not going out.”
As Sounwave and Kendrick have already reiterated, there’s most likely not going to be a follow up or companion album that accompanies Damn. But it definitely sounds like there are some alternate versions of it out there that aren’t intended for public consumption. If fans are lucky, they may wind up being released in a similar manner to 2016’s untilted unmastered.
