What was your reaction to seeing the Grammy nominations?

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It's kind of creepy because I didn't think I would come this far. If you know anything about St. Paul, you know how it is. People think it's a quiet city but it's actually a loud city that got a lot going on. For me to make it up outta there, and move around, I never thought I would get nominated ever. It wasn't in my plans or my goals, it just happened like that. My hardship kind of leads to my success in a weird way.

I know you've worked with Kendrick in the past, when was the first time y'all linked up? What was that like?

The first time we linked up it was 2011 I would say. He's always been the bro — him, Sounwave, Dave [Free], [Derek] Ali...everybody. It's always been love since we were working on Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City.

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Unfortunately, I didn't make [the album] because it wasn't the sound that he was going for, which meant that I had to keep working harder and harder and just create something new. At that time, I was still doing shit with Wiz [Khalifa], so I was caught in that as well. Once To Pimp A Butterfly came out, I tried to make that as well but I had other shit going on like the Jeezy project, and a gang of other shit. I was never able to get to that. Then we did the untitled unmastered. and we had multiple records and what not. After that, we just kept working, it was always love. It was just finding that pocket and creating something new and impactful.

That's what Kendrick does, he wants to make impacting music. We worked on Damn. for a long time, for like, over a year. We was there through that whole project, and I was on that one song but we got some records in the cut.

You've worked with so many hip-hop acts, from Wiz to Curren$y, to Jeezy, to Kendrick, and Migos. How have you managed to reinvent yourself and keep things going?

I know one thing: in this game you gotta be versatile. If you wanna be in this game for a long time you gotta know how to switch it up and you gotta know how to create every time and be innovative. That's one thing I kept in the back of my mind. I would push myself to see how far I could go with things, and I push myself every day just to create something new and impactful. That's what I did — I just believed in myself too much to the point where could create.