Sneakin
by Drake (featuring 21 Savage)

Album: non-album single (2016)
Charted: 52 28
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • This is the first-ever collaboration between Drake and 21 Savage. They may have connected through Metro Boomin as the Atlanta rapper recorded a collaborative EP with the producer titled Savage Mode and Metro Boomin helmed the majority of the tracks on Drake and Future's shared mixtape, What a Time to Be Alive.
  • The beat was supplied by Atlanta producer London On Da Track, whose other credits include Rich Gang's "Lifestyle" and T.I.'s "About The Money". Speaking with VladTV, London revealed the collaboration came together after the pair met up in his hometown.

    "I met Drake in Atlanta at a bar or something... Me, Keyshia Cole, and Drake... Me and Drake was talking like 'we need 7 bangers in the club right now'... We went to the studio. He had to leave … So I sent him a whole bunch of beats, and he was like 'we about to make history. I just bodied a whole bunch of tracks,' and he let me hear it when he got back to Atlanta."
  • London On Da started crafting the beat with an eerie guitar solo before adding some spacey organs. He told Genius how his instrumentation came together:

    "I had the guitar come on first. Because I thought that was just one of the dopest parts of the beat. Then I had the spacey organs fade in with the guitar, so it sounded like… I just thought that was different. Then I stretched it. Brought it in with the ambient sound that I played around the guitar, but I took the guitar out. And I was like, 'Okay here go the turn up part.' This way it's going to catch everybody's attention.

    Everybody's waiting on the build up. All my beats are build up. When you hear my music, everything is build up. It starts from something and then it goes to 'Oh yeah! This is it!'"

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Early Days of MTV

Early Days of MTVFact or Fiction

If you can recall the days when MTV played videos, you know that there are lots of stories to tell. See if you can spot the real ones.

Emilio Castillo from Tower of Power

Emilio Castillo from Tower of PowerSongwriter Interviews

Emilio talks about what it's like to write and perform with the Tower of Power horns, and why every struggling band should have a friend like Huey Lewis.

American Hits With Foreign Titles

American Hits With Foreign TitlesSong Writing

What are the biggest US hits with French, Spanish (not "Rico Suave"), Italian, Scottish, Greek, and Japanese titles?

U2 Lyrics

U2 LyricsMusic Quiz

How well do you know the lyrics of U2?

Brian Kehew: The Man Behind The Remasters

Brian Kehew: The Man Behind The RemastersSong Writing

Brian has unearthed outtakes by Fleetwood Mac, Aretha Franklin, Elvis Costello and hundreds of other artists for reissues. Here's how he does it.

80s Video Director Jay Dubin

80s Video Director Jay DubinSong Writing

Billy Joel and Hall & Oates hated making videos, so they chose a director with similar contempt for the medium. That was Jay Dubin, and he has a lot to say on the subject.