Jack Harlow - Say Hello
3/25/202626 min
Jack Harlow is from Louisville, Kentucky, and started performing and releasing music in 2015, when he was in high school. In 2020, he released his first album, which went double platinum. He was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rap Performance. He’s had multiple number one hits across his first three albums. For his fourth album, Monica, which just came out in March 2026, he switched things up dramatically. I was curious how and why—how did someone who had so much success as a rapper approach a new way of making music? So for this episode, I spoke to Jack Harl...
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First 90 secondsHrishikesh 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. [gentle music] Jack Harlow is from Louisville, Kentucky, and started performing and releasing music in 2015 when he was in high school. In 2020, he released his first album, which went double platinum. He was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rap Performance. He's had multiple number one hits across his first three albums. And for his fourth album, Monica, which just came out in March 2026, he switched things up dramatically, and I was curious how and why. How did someone who had so much success as a rapper approach a new way of making music? So for this episode, I spoke to Jack Harlow about the song Say Hello, which is the closing track on Monica.
Jack Harlow· Guest0:51
[singing] Ooh, oh. Ooh, oh. Say hello. Ooh, oh. Ooh, oh. Say hello. Ooh, oh. My name's Jack Harlow. I was working on a different album for two years after Jackman, my last one, and it was good, but I didn't think it was exciting or surprising. It just wasn't distinct enough, and it also felt like something I'd done before, which, you know, repeating yourself is boring. And