Bobby Shmurda's "Hot N***a" was almost a Meek Mill track. Roc Nation producer Jahlil Beats spoke with DJ Booth Thursday, revealing he originally made the beloved beat for Meek before ultimately passing it to Lloyd Banks.
"That beat was actually for Meek Mill as well," Jahlil said. "At the time, he had so much of that type of music, so I sent it to Lloyd Banks. He put the record out and never really did nothing with it. Nowadays, it's like rappers put your record out and if it pops off, then they do the business side. So he put it out and I was like, 'Aight, cool.' I really fucked with the record." Banks' version never really took off, but Shmurda got his hands on the instrumental (featured on one of Jahlil's Crack Music tapes) and quickly made history.
"I didn't know who he was at all," Jahlil admitted. "I saw people tagging me in it, in the video where he's throwing the hat up and all that. And then my cousin sent me a tweet from Kevin Durant where he's talking about it. That was when I knew it was big." Jahlil then tracked Shmurda down on Instagram and settled the business side of the massive beat before working on Shmurda's next batch of music, which was short-lived.
"We got about five records that we had worked on before [Shmurda] got locked up," he said. "His success was very short. He got locked up like a month after that record really blew up."
"Hot N***a" marked Shmurda's debut commercial single. The 2014 track peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spawned the viral Shmoney Dance.
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