‘Furthest Thing’ from Drake’s new album Nothing Was The Same is turning out to be a fan favorite but most of us aren’t aware of the tiresome process that led to the final product we hear on the album. Producer Jake One has shared some of the secrets behind the making of the song with NPR and it’s a lot more than you would have expected.
What you hear on “Furthest Thing” sounds like a sample from an old record. And originally it was, ripped from a live gospel album from 1990. “There was just something about the dynamic of that band, in that church,” says Jake, at home in Seattle front of his ASR-10 sampler and laptop, Crocs on his feet, daughter upstairs watching Dora. He won’t name the record and claims it’s “not on the Internet, and I don’t think you can Shazam it.”
When I ask for a flat surface to take notes on, he hands me a gospel record with a $1 price tag on it — maybe another song in waiting. But the beat he sent to Drake (whom he met through Twitter, then email, then text, then in person) didn’t germinate in his collection. The sample came from Gene Brown in North Carolina, an independent record collector who combs stores for choice material.
“It’s not a secret,” Brown says on the phone. “People know me. But there aren’t that many people who do what I do. I was a hip-hop artist and DJ, and I can still do that. But record collecting and selling, that’s my thing. It’s an exclusive type thing. Some people do want the physical record, for collection purposes. Some people are just fine with buying .wav files.”
So, Jake bought Brown’s .wav file for an undisclosed three figure amount, chopped it up, programmed drums and added other sounds, and arranged it into a beat. He sent it to Drake, and after years of Drake liking and being ready to use various Jake beats at various times — this time Drake texted him back definitively:
“This is the one.”
Read the full story here.
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