Steve Lacy Describes Working With Kendrick Lamar and Creating “PRIDE”
Steve Lacy just leveled up. The Internet member has been showing flashes of star potential since the release of an excellent solo project Steve Lacy’s Demo recorded entirely on his iPhone—but he just took a huge step forward by contributing to one of the best songs on Kendrick Lamar‘s new album DAMN.
Sitting down with Matt Wilkninson in an interview that will air in its entirety at 5pm BST April 15 on Beats 1, Lacy explained that his good friend DJ Dahi (who is one of Kendrick’s house producers) hooked him up with the opportunity.
“When I walk in the room the first thing Kendrick says to me ‘I’ve seen your face in some music videos’ and I was like yeah yours too man and the whole room started cracking up laughing and that just broke the ice,” Lacy says. “But initially I was just there as Dahi’s lil homey and Dahi’s programming drums live and I’m playing guitar and bass Kendrick’s freestyling, it’s just organic lowjam sessions.”
Then, Lacy talked about the song itself—which came from an acoustic session recorded on his iPhone.
“The song I did for him came from this acoustic session that was recorded on my iPhone,” Lacy explained. “I showed Anna Wise how to record her vocals and she recorded this whole idea over these acoustic guitar chords I came up with, a small little drum loop that I made and then I took her vocal stems and made a beat over it so this new version of this Anna Wise track I played for him and this was the track where he was like ‘Yo put your number in my phone I need this.’ I went there a couple more times to work on some stuff and this song he was just sure about. He loved this one.”
Having just graduated high school last year, Lacy reflected on how far he’s come so quickly.
“It’s still hitting me now,” he said. “I still haven’t fully gripped what I just did but yeah it’s crazy to think I was in a classroom just 6 months ago.”
Listen to “PRIDE” right here and listen to Lacy talk about his musical beginnings below.
