Loose Change

Album: Wasteland (2022)
Charted: 72 52
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Songfacts®:

  • Here, Brent Faiyaz tussles with his girlfriend about their relationship. He accuses her of being noncommittal, and because their relationship isn't working, it leads him to question what love is.
  • Faiyaz also addresses his struggles with the success he's had with his music. He acknowledges that his wealth and fame create prejudices in relationships and wishes his lover could look beyond his Mercedes and Patek watch.
  • The title doesn't appear in the lyrics and it's unclear to us how "Loose Change" fits into the narrative.
  • The song starts and ends with sound clips from the 2004 game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
  • Brent Faiyaz wrote "Loose Change" with The-Dream and the track's producers Jordan Ware, No I.D., Beat Butcha, Paperboy Fabe and Raphael Saadiq. The-Dream is someone whom Faiyaz turns to when he gets stuck on a song for a long period. "I'll start something and I'll be halfway done and I just won't know where to take it," he explained to Rolling Stone. "I call him like the finisher, bro. Like, he pulls up and just body it. Then he will pull the next one up, and finish ideas that I already had in my arsenal that I didn't know how to fully get out. He came in on a smooth four or five of these s--ts, just came through."
  • Raphael Saadiq both co-produced and played the guitar on "Loose Change." He also produced another Wasteland track, "Angel," and played the bass on and produced "Ghetto Gatsby."

    Faiyaz first connected with Saadiq through their mutual friend, fashion designer Kerby Jean-Raymond. They got on, so when Faiyaz returned to Los Angeles, he linked up with the former Tony! Toni! Toné! member in the studio. Saadiq played him some unreleased instrumentals and guitar loops, and when the Maryland crooner asked him what he was doing with them, Saadiq said he only gives his good ideas "to Solange, D'Angelo, and now you."

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