Kendrick Lamar said he felt like he transformed into Goku from "Dragonball Z" when he recorded "Hey Now," according to Mustard.
The Grammy award-winning producer spoke about working with K.Dot on his GNX album during an interview the Recording Academy released on Monday, January 27. Mustard opened up about sending Lamar five to six beats daily while they cooked up the album (and to this day). He said he didn't hear songs like "TV Off" until after the album came out. However, he did hear "Hey Now" beforehand and was blown away by how it turned out.
“I had heard ‘Hey Now’ during the ‘Not Like Us’ video shoot; he played me a snippet,” he explained. “I asked him, ‘Man, what made you do that?’ And he said, ‘When I heard the beat, I just felt like Goku or something.’ I was like, ‘What?’ And he explained, ‘Yeah, when I hear certain s**t on your beats, it brings out something else in me, so I just did whatever I felt.’ I was like, ‘Wow, that’s crazy.'”
Mustard originally made the beat for "Hey Now" in 2019. In a recent interview with People, the 10 Summers artist shopped the beat around to other artists like YG, Quavo, and Ty Dolla $ign — all of which passed on the instrumental. He eventually brought it to Kendrick and the rest is history.
“I was talking to Kendrick one day and I was just like, ‘Man, I got this really weird-ass beat, but I really love it," he told People. "Like, I know that I love this beat.’ And I sent it to him and right away he said, ‘Oh yeah, I got it.’ And I was like, ‘Alright.’"
The esteemed producer is currently up for several Grammy nominations including Producer of the Year, non-classical and Record of the Year thanks to "Not Like Us." The 67th Grammy Awards is going down on Sunday, February 2 in Los Angeles.