Ezra Koenig Elaborates on Beyoncé Collaboration, Interviews Ariel Rechtshaid on Beats 1
Ezra Koenig gave further insight about his involvement on Beyoncé’s song “Hold Up” during tonight’s episode of his Beats 1 show Time Crisis. In the below quote, the Vampire Weekend frontman talks about how the hook came together, and how he feels about the song now that it’s been released on Lemonade. Previously, Koenig explained how his Yeah Yeah Yeahs-inspired tweet ended up becoming a Beyoncé song, and Diplo shared Koenig’s original demo.
“People get really hung up on who wrote what. In some ways I served as like, the middle ground between the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Beyoncé, but it’s funny to think about — what does writing really mean? Of course I’m like, proud. I think I wrote a good hook, I think I had a good idea to like, riff on the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. But now when I listen back to the demo, it sounds different because she contextualized the song. She made this great video where she’s like, bashing windows and stuff. When I wrote that, it wasn’t directed at anybody, I was just songwriting. There are Vampire Weekend songs that have deep meaning to me, that are personal, but that one I was kinda songwriting. Like, ‘oh, this is a good hook.’ I wasn’t thinking about anyone in particular, and the idea that those words are now contextualized by this album, that video, by her as a performer and a curator—I like it! I think it has deeper meaning. Of course I feel some sense of ownership over what I did, but it doesn’t feel like my song. She really did bring a different resonance and meaning to it. It’s a very modern way of a song coming together… 99% of the world will hear those words and associate them with Beyoncé now.”
Koenig later interviews producer Ariel Rechtshaid about the process of crafting Usher‘s hit “Climax.” Another co-production with Diplo, “Climax” didn’t come together until Rechtshaid and Diplo took a track at house tempo and put it in half-time. “It’s all about reading body language and everybody in the room understanding each other. We knew he [Usher] didn’t want it to be that tempo, so Wes and I decided to half-time it. So we took that main part and I went into the other room and I started to build chords around it.” Rechtshaid said that Usher freestyled the main verse melody of “Climax” on the spot, during his first listen of the beat.
Listen to the full episode of Time Crisis here via Apple Music.
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