YG celebrated his 24th birthday as well as the upcoming release of his Def Jam debut album, My Krazy Life with a listening session at HWV8 in Los Angeles, California (March 9). In an exclusive conversation with HipHopDX immediately following the event, the Compton-native explained what he hates about his break out hit single, “Toot It & Boot It.”
“The ‘Toot It & Boot It’ record, I fucked with the record, but at the time, I didn’t take my time with that shit because the homies did that record,” YG said. “[Ty Dolla $ign and DJ Mustard] gave me that record. They wrote that shit. They called me to the studio and told me they had a song for me. I was fucking with it but I ain’t really know because it wasn’t like the shit that I was recording at that time. So I did the record, but when I did the record I ain’t take my time on my verses. I was just rapping. That’s why I don’t like the record, because of my verses. But the hook, the content is the shit. That’s real nigga shit. Niggas probably won’t tell you no shit like that. I’m giving it to you raw and uncut.”
YG Details DJ Mustard’s Production Process
YG also reflected on a pact that he and DJ Mustard formed following the initial success of “Toot It & Boot It.”
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“Life at that time, we was thuggin,” he said. “Mustard was doing his thing. I was doing my thang. Me and him came to an agreement to where we was going to lock ourselves in the studio, which was my bedroom, for like six months. We came to an agreement because I was in a cold situation. It was at the end of the ‘Toot It & Boot It’ shit. The music that I had at the time, I wasn’t feeling it.
“Mustard was a deejay,” YG continued. “He had started making beats, but he really wasn’t making them like how he’s making them now. He wanted to be a producer, too, so we both wanted to be bigger than what we was at the time. We both had the same type of passion for the shit, the same goals. So we said we was gonna lock ourselves in the studio and that’s what we did. He was going through my Pro Tools sessions to different songs that I recorded that he didn’t even know about. He’d find some records that I did to a beat that was whatever and he took my vocals and made beats to them. We was goin’ in like that. It was that deep. Niggas don’t go through niggas sessions and listen to songs they already done did and switch up beats and all that. That’s what the homie was doing and we was coming up with records. I was coming up with my shit and he was coming up with his shit. Then it blew up after that. We put out the first mixtape and it blew up. At that time, that’s what we were doing—we was figuring it out. We had one foot in and one foot out. We put our time in. We did our homework and shit started happening. We stayed consistent. We ain’t wait for nobody. We wasn’t waiting on nothing.”
Released in 2009, “Toot It & Boot It” peaked at #67 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. The success of the single was pivotal in YG’s eventual signing to Def Jam Records. The video for “Toot It & Boot It” has over 19 million views on Youtube.
YG is also signed to Jeezy’s CTE World imprint.
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YG’s My Krazy Life is scheduled for release on March 18.
