Song Exploder - Denzel Curry - RICKY

Episode Date: July 24, 2019

Denzel Curry is a rapper from Miami. He started his career at age 16 as part of the hip hop collective Raider Klan. He released his first solo album while still in high school. In May 2019 Denzel released his fourth album, ZUU. He made it with the Australian production duo FnZ, who have been collaborating with him since 2016. The album was named Best New Music by Pitchfork, and Denzel made his TV debut on The Tonight Show. songexploder.net/denzel-curry

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. My name is Rishi Kesheir Wang. This episode contains explicit language. Denzel Curry is a rapper from Miami. He started his career at age 16 as part of the hip-hop collective Raider Clan. He released his first solo album while he was still in high school. In May 2019, Denzel released his fourth album, Zoo. He made it with the Australian production duo F&Z, who've been collaborating with.

with him since 2016. The album was named Best New Music by Pitchfork, and Denzel made his TV debut on The Tonight Show. In this episode, Denzel Curry and F&Z break down the song, Ricky, which was named after Denzel's father. My name is Denzel Curry. The day this song started, man, we was just, we was all in the studio.

I just got off of a tour in Australia. And I was like, when I get back, we're going to go in, because I was still trying to keep the momentum up as much as I can. I didn't want to lose that to disappear for another two years, so as soon as I came back, we just went straight to the studio the next day. My name is Michael, aka Fanatic. And I am Zach of the production duo, F&Z.

We executive produced the album. The first day that we initially started working on this song, it was back in February earlier this year, and we'd been hammering through so many ideas a day. It was a week of just making songs that were duds, like they were bad songs. It was pretty full on. We just had been like doing a long time. days, long nights. Like a lot was just like a quick rough idea,

jump to the next one. We were struggling to make coal into a diamond throughout that whole week, just trying to find something. Denzel had been recording some ideas that we had prepared earlier. And then in between sometimes sessions like that, we'll just jump on their headphones while he's doing his thing. We'll start getting the next idea ready.

I remember stumbling across a sample I found from an artist named Lucid. The song was called Twisted Blood. It was a really random electronic track that had these crazy scents, like, sounds that I haven't heard before. It kind of has like this melody that sounds like an ice cream truck or something like that, you know, like coming down the block.

And it was just very catchy. So just basically, yeah, chop that up and found it a way to slow it down. When it slowed down, it has like almost a nostalgic, reminiscent feel of like early NWA. And then we put the drums to it. Just random kicks and snares we've collected over the years. And then the 808 kick. the rule booming one that's in there. We were really referencing early NWA and EZE.

Kind of like listen sonically, like the way their drums sound. Living on the West Coast, it's hard not to be inspired by that type of music. And as producers, we all grow up on the greats, the West Coast and that. So it's like to be able to infuse that with a sound that we're inspired by in something different. It was, you know, a cool twist on it. Sometimes, like, Fanatic, when he's really making a beat,

he doesn't let us hear nothing. Like, he goes in his headphones and he does it himself. And then it was like, hey, play or something. He was like, oh, it's not done, but okay. Boom. I was like, oh shit. You know, it was like ice cream. So I'm like, yo, this is kind of hard.

Yeah, he just jumped up and it was like, I need to get that right now. Like very frantic, you know, and that's always a good sign, knowing that, you know, he's ready to go in the booth and lay down something crazy. And he started with actually the chorus first. My daddy said trust no man but your brothers and never leave your day once in the gutter.

My daddy said treat young girls like your mother. My mama said trust no hope. Use a rubber. The whole track is freestyle. And my dad was like one of my main supporters, my number one supporter actually. My dad has just pretty much just been there, you know, and he knew how much music and art was important to me.

So he let me do what he do, but long as I make it home before a curfew because he didn't want to see me getting in trouble and things like that. Especially when I was like 16, when I was becoming a young man. And my dad instilled a lot of values. Both of my parents have when it comes down to the way you treat your friends, you know. Make sure you, like, keep your friends close at all times because everybody might come up and say they're your friend and they're not really a dog, you feel me.

Just keep your family close, like, keep your brothers close. Make sure you let them know you love them, you know. And just, like, don't let nobody punk you or push you over because that's what, you know what, you mean, don't let nobody play you for a fool. And if it happened, just don't let that shit happen again. See, Ricky said never let nobody get the one up on you. If they run up on you, hit them with a one, two. You always got to switch your flows up because it's just like

it keeps people engaged and I'm good at fast flows. Leave the cold to sack your brother's going to have your back regardless. And stick with your day one homies that was here before you started. And fear no man but the man above your head. Pray before you go to bed everything my mama said. Fear no man but the man above your hand. Just fear no man on this earth except God. You feel me?

My dad's Baptist, my mom's Jehovah's Witness, and my mom, like, instilled a lot of those church morals in me. But my mom definitely is the harder one out of the two. I think that's where I get, like, a lot of my aggression and my attitude from... My daddy said treat young girls like your mother. My mama said trust. No, ho.

Use a rubber. So when I lay all that down, I came up with, like, a little pre-hook. And then Fanatic told me, I liked what you did the second half, but the first half, I don't like it. Like, he's brutally honest about it. When we're working with Denzel, we definitely give feedback on, like, takes, melodies,

flows. We're always collaborating and communicating just to get the best songs. And then we were like, yo, let's just take some time off because we've been going in, like, the whole week and not really letting it breathe. So we was like, all right, cool. I remember being at my house, and I was going through these DJ school freestyles because, like, I'm from the South, so we're into most of the Southern Coast. and shit. And basically I stumbled upon a fat pat freestyle was fat pat and zero called

Been Around the World. Mr. Mr. Got the pistol in my lap. Always stayed trapped. 24 to the 7. See ya ass to heaven. There's a motherfucker two. 11 on the beat, mic be come blue. Got your page. I'm on the rage. And I was just like, oh man, this shit sounds crazy, man. I like the flows on this a lot. So I sent it to Fanatic of Zach, and he was like, yo, this shit's sick, man. Like, this is some hard shit. We went back into the studio, he was like, you want to try that DJ screw little flow on that?

So I just flipped it in my own way. I did it regular, and then I was like just turn it down like a couple notches. And we found the perfect pitch for it. First they mocking, now they hopping. All on the way because they see me popping. Big, big, large pockets, they start flocking. Here's what I say when they're. The fact that it's pitched gives it a certain break from the rest of the song.

So we also added the bass and it emphasizes it even more. Big large pockets, they start flocking. Here's what I say when they ask keep knocking. Denzel laying down the chorus and the pre-chorus was very quick. It was more so the verses that he really wanted to take his time with, you know. And we're really grateful that he did because there's so many memorable lines throughout that song, especially in Vos 2. That was it.

We was lit. Y'all wasn't even shit yet. We was 3-6, Wu-Tang mixed with Dip Set. A lot of old-school hip-hop impacted me, man. If you don't know nothing about Denzel Curry, so you got to go dig in the crates for Denzel Curry. And what you're going to find is the infamous history of Raider Klan. That's the group I was in at the time when I was going to high school.

So when I said we was 3-6 Wu-Tang mixed with Dip-Set, The way Raider Clan was set up, we was deep like Wu-Tang Clan. And the personalities that we had were like numerous. Three-six was like the type of music we was making because it was all dark-sounding. It sounded like the triple-six mafia stuff, like the early stuff, with the bass and the beats distorted and crazy and hard to hear. And then the dipset line, we was just fly. We knew it was fly because everybody was copying us.

Like the whole industry was copying what Raider Clan was. doing. We was 3-6 Wu-Tang mixed with Dipset. That was at a point where, you know, post-production stages when we knew the song was going to be the single and going on the album. And we're just trying to figure out little tweaks we could do at that point to make this song a little more exciting. And Zach had the idea was like, man, you know, he says that line about 3-6 mix of Wu-Tang and Dipset. It was like, you know, it'd be a crazy idea to sample some like old-school early 90s rums and just do it very, very quick, you know, for one or two bars. It's just like a little Easter egg, switch the beat up a little bit. We was lit y'all wasn't even shit yet

We was 3-6 Fultime mixed with dipset That's our producer tag That we created pretty recently It just says F and Z And then Denzel saying, well damn It's just a tool that a lot of producers use Just a promotional thing

You know, try to get your name out there more And it's actually worked With that tag in there We saw online people are like, what is that? What is that? Some people didn't even know exactly what it was saying but it was already kind of getting the word out there And then there's like people putting two under together

and they're like, who's this F&Z? Well, damn, who are these guys? And then they start connecting the dots. This is the most simple song. I made a hard record about treating my friends right about morals that I got because of my parents and talking about like shit that I had to learn a hard way. You know, that's basically what it was growing up in the neighborhood,

like just how we was raised. Can you tell me about the first time your dad heard this song? He's just like, man, I'm fucked with that song. That's my shit. It's like I got a theme song, not knowing, you know, who would have thought my song make me a goddamn theme song? And now, here's Ricky by Denzel Curry in its entirety. Visit SongExploder.combe, y'all wasn't even shit.

Ricky hopping all on the way because they see me. Visit SongExploder.net for more information about Denzel Curry and F&Z. You'll also find a link to buy or stream this song. This episode was produced by Christian Coons and me. Rishi Kesh Hereway. This year, our guest host is Tao Wyn, but she's off this week. Carlos Lerma is our illustrator. He makes a portrait for every episode. You can see his portrait of Denzel Curry on the Song Exploder website or Instagram. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a mighty collective of independent podcasts. You can learn about all of our

shows at Radiotopia.fm. You can also follow Song Exploder on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at Song Exploder. My name is Rishi Kesh Hirwey. Thanks for listening.