At the same time as we distance ourselves additional and farther from the meat between Kendrick Lamar and Drake, “Not Like Us,” continues to be the most well-liked document going. Only a week after performing it on the Tremendous Bowl, Lamar’s explosive diss monitor has retaken the highest spot on the Billboard Scorching 100.
However probably the most underrated components of the tune that makes it so common is the manufacturing. Mustard did an unimaginable job of giving Lamar a traditional West Coast beat that additionally sounds fashionable. He gave him the proper constructing blocks to create an unimaginable document.
So how did they do it? Sampling. Each Lamar and Mustard took some nice components from different items of artwork to create this timeless hit that expresses the Compton MC’s disdain for the 6-God.
Listed here are all of the samples they used.
Monk Higgins – “I Consider to My Soul”
These booming saxophones that you simply hear earlier than Lamar begins rapping are sampled from Higgins’ monitor, “I Consider to My Soul,” which is a canopy of Ray Charles’ 1961 tune of the identical identify.
The beat used all through the monitor can also be sampled from Higgins’ 1968 cowl. Take heed to how Mustard was ready to make use of the tune to create the beat for “Not Like Us” beneath:
Higgins’ work was additionally sampled on Lamar’s “television off,” which can also be successful monitor in its personal proper. This time “MacArthur Park” was used, which was the title monitor for Higgins’ studio album.
It may be heard all through the primary half of Lamar’s tune, earlier than the beat switches.
“The Sixth Sense”
Whereas this was not technically a pattern, Lamar references the 1999 film, “The Sixth Sense,” when he whispers, “psst, I see lifeless folks.”
That is additionally a enjoyable callback to Ok. Dot’s earlier diss monitor aimed toward Drake, “Euphoria.” On that monitor, he raps, “Am I battlin’ ghost or AI? / N***a feelin’ like Joel Hale Osteen / Humorous, he was in a movie known as ‘AI’ / And my sixth sense tellin’ me to off him.”
The identify of the actor who mentioned that line within the film is just not “Joel Hale Osteen,” it’s Haley Joel Osment.
Nonetheless, when requested in regards to the reference, Osment thinks that Lamar deliberately scrambled his identify with well-known pastor Joel Osteen.
“Mustard on the Beat”
For individuals who will not be up on Mustard’s music, he features a “Mustard on the Beat Ho” in nearly each monitor he produces.
YG created the tag on his 2011 monitor, “I’m Good.”
The tag might be heard on nearly each hit document he’s produced, together with songs from Rihanna, Large Sean, Ty Dolla $ign, 2 Chainz, and plenty of others.