[phone beeping] “What’s good, bro? Hold on real quick, hold on real quick, bro.” “Hey, you’re good? Hey, what’s up, man?” “It’s lit!” [laughter] “Can you say swear words on this? Is it going to get bleeped out?” “So this is the thing we’re trying to decide, like, The Times has very strict rules — “I got hoes callin’ a young Sheck Wes’ phone.” “What is it about a song like ‘Mo Bamba’ where everybody wants to turn up to it at a party and yet like, it doesn’t get that much radio play, it’s not on the Hot 100, but it still feels like a huge song?” “The people I be around don’t give a [expletive] about no industry [expletive], bro. Apple Music, whatever, whatever? [expletive] that [expletive], bro.” “His name is 16yrold.” “16yrold.” “Yeah, he’s not actually 16.” “Yeah, he’s a little older than 16.” “I need to change my producer name anyway.” “He was in town so we were like, oh like, let’s get together, because we like a bunch of stuff that he was posting on SoundCloud.” “I walked in and they got all these vintage synths —” “Daytrip took it to 10.” “— like, stacked up on each other. I went over to their Prophet.” “Do you play piano?” “No, I just know that like, if something just sounds out of key, it’s out of key, so find the other key that fits.” “I wanted like an evil-sounding type thing.” “Dun-dun dun dun dun-dun dun dun. I mean, I was like, all right, perfect. And then I stood up and I was like — ” “Oh, we should definitely like get Sheck on this.” “And he was like, ‘Let me hit him up right now.’” “I was going to go back to Harlem and then I had to call 16. [he said] I’m at the studio.” “And I was all like, ‘Bro, I got something stupid for you right now, bro.’” [piano riff] “I pull up and then 16yrold was like, [expletive] I like these keys.” “I was like, find a good [expletive] synth bass for it.” [bass riff] We threw a sausage fattener on there, and I remember Sheck was like, ‘No, y’all need to distort that bitch even more.’” [bass riff] [vocalizing] “He was just like, in his head like, kind of like, singing stuff. So we just put him on the mic and then he starts rapping.” “I got hoes callin’ — I didn’t have a manager, so I had all these like, people calling, people that used to be my friends and stuff.” “He just kept like, talking about it like, this guy keeps calling me, like, you know, I already told him like, blah blah blah.” “I was just annoyed, you know? And at the same time, my friend Mo, a lot of coaches and stuff was after him, and it was like he was being recruited as well. I be ballin’ like my [expletive] Mo.” “And he basically did the whole thing front to back, like in one take?” “Yeah, he did it in one take.” “Sheck Wes, I ain’t a [expletive] joke.” “I had an older laptop at the time, so that laptop always froze. So I’m like, please, please, God don’t freeze.” “Sheck Wes got so many flows.” “I could see the play head moving —” “Call me Drake —” “ — then everything freezes. And then there’s no music.” “So he’s like [expletive], [expletive].” “And then right when he said —” “Bitch.” “— everything just unfroze.” “Oh [expletive] [expletive], bitch! Young Sheck Wes and I’m gettin’ really rich —” “We’re just like, ‘Oh, he just did it!’” “All of us were like —” “But it’s literally like, he just did like, a triple backflip and like, landed perfectly on his feet.” “— on the go.” “We’re done recording everything and then they’re like, we need to put a second hook in.” “And Sheck’s just like, ‘No, all right —” “It’s perfect.” “It’s perfect.” “I’m like, yeah, we done, what y’all mean? My [expletive] is art.” “He was like, ‘I’m the artist.’” “They just my paint brushes, and my paint, you know?” “Whoa.” “This is slow beginning.” “Yo, all right, now play this [expletive] from the top now.” “He was like, ‘Let me do the ad libs and then it’ll just — it’ll all like make sense.’” “Everybody always love my ad libs. Young Sheck Wes and I’m gettin’ really rich, ching-ching. See how I caught it ‘cause I’m really with the ping ping. See me in the streets and I be really with a ting ting — with a bad bitch. Bitch!” “His famous like, ad lib is just, ‘Bitch!’” “I use the b-word a lot. I don’t say it to like, degrade women or anything. Any time you hear me say ‘bitch’ is because it means something that like, got me angry or like, something I really mean.” “The minute he did the ad libs, it just came together.” “Yeah, so like that was like, you know, 20 minutes.” “It was a quick session.” “See how I caught it ‘cause I’m really with the ping ping.” “None of us really talked after that, and then two days later, 16yrold just uploaded it to his SoundCloud page.” “Out of nowhere one day he just dropped it.” “We didn’t turn it in to no label, we didn’t have to wait a month to get it onto Spotify.” “Do you feel like ‘Mo Bamba’ has been an influential song?” “Influential, hell yeah. I’ve seen Drake comment.” “Drake knows that song, yeah it’s influential, yeah.” “Shaquille O’Neal was on Instagram going crazy to ‘Mo Bamba.’” “When you see like, a song come on, you look at people’s faces and they’re like, kinda confused, but then they’re like, I know the words already. Like, the words are so simple and it’s almost like a chant.” “You know, and it’s crazy because this song still hasn’t hit its peak, and this is like, a statistical fact — [singing] on the go.” “Were you guys around for the video shoot when Sheck had broke his leg or whatever?” “We — they shot it in Harlem but —” “Yeah, we didn’t end up going to it.” “He always sends us like, cryptic texts, like, ‘Show up to the middle court, midnight.’” “We’re like, we don’t know Harlem that well, man.” “I’m like, I don’t —” “— you want to send like a street corner?” [laughing]