Don't

Album: Trapsoul (2015)
Charted: 71 13
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Songfacts®:

  • The breakthrough single for R&B singer-songwriter Bryson Tiller, "Don't" finds him singing of a desire to be with a girl that is being mistreated by her man. He explained in an annotation on Genius: "On this song, I'm not boyfriend number two and I'm not trapped in the friend zone. I'm actually pretending; I jumped out of myself and got into a perspective of somebody else."

    "I wasn't doing what I needed to be doing in my relationship at that time and I was kinda fu---ng up, so I thought what if somebody else stepped in the picture? So, I said cool I'm gonna be that person and write a song from his perspective, trying to get my girl. That's something that nobody would know ever."
  • That's Texan artist King Vory on the outro. Tiller recalled: "I got this beat from SoundClick and I went to the studio to meet with this artist from Houston, his name's King Vory - he's on another song of mine called 'Break Bread.'"

    "This is my first time that I ever played him music and I played him 'Don't' and he was like, 'This is dope, I did the same beat.' So he played it for me and all he had on the beat was 'H-Town got me feelin' so throwed.' I was like, 'Yo that's dope bro. I can't finish my song, my song is kinda short so let's combine 'em.'"
  • The song is the lead single from Tiller's debut album Trapsoul. He explained to Billboard magazine where the idea of Trapsoul came from: "I released a song called 'Let Em Know' off SoundCloud and some fan commented on it and was like, 'Trap soul movement,' and I was like, man, that's dope. What is that? And it just sounded like my music," he said. "That was the perfect word to describe my music, so I was just like, I'm going to call my project that."
  • "Don't" was recorded at home. Tiller recalled to NME: "I bought a bunch of stuff on eBay and it all came in the mail one day. I woke up one morning and it was the first song I recorded on my new equipment. I did it before my daughter woke up."

    The recording didn't go entirely to plan. "My computer messed up and every time I tried to record there was just a bunch of static," Tiller said. "The song was supposed to be longer but I had to cut it short because I couldn't record anything else."

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