Hit-Boy and Nipsey Hussle - Racks In the Middle (feat. Roddy Ricch and Hit-Boy)

Hrishikesh Hirway· Host0:00

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. I'm Hrishikesh Hirway. This episode contains explicit language. Hit-Boy is an award-winning producer and rapper from LA. He's one of my all-time favorite producers, from Backseat Freestyle by Kendrick Lamar, to Sicko Mode by Travis Scott, to tracks he's made for Beyoncé, Nas, and the Jay-Z and Kanye album Watch the Throne. So I was really excited to talk to him, and when I asked him which song from his incredible catalog he wanted to talk about, I was really moved by his choice. He picked Racks in the Middle by Nipsey Hussle, featuring Roddy Ricch. Nipsey Hussle was a rapper and community activist from LA whose career was cut short tragically when he was murdered in 2019. He'd released just one album, Victory Lap. Racks in the Middle was the last song released in Nipsey's lifetime. It went platinum, and a year after his death, it won the Grammy for Best Rap Performance in 2020. This episode features a few short clips from a video that Nipsey Hussle made for the website Genius back in 2019. There's a link to the full video that he made in the show notes. But here in the studio to tell the story, I spoke to Hit-Boy about how Racks in the Middle came together.

Hit-Boy· Guest1:16

[singing] And I've been riding solo trying to rebuild. Look, I was riding around in the V12 with the racks in the middle. Had to pray to almighty God they let my dog out the kennel. When you get it straight up out the mud you can't imagine this shit. I've