Yes Indeed
by Lil Baby (featuring Drake)

Album: Harder Than Ever (2018)
Charted: 46 6
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • This song starts off with a verse by Drake containing his typical lyrical topics such as his decade-long dominance in the rap game and references to his visits to strip clubs. Lil Baby takes on the rest of the song, rapping about his newfound lavish lifestyle. Asked about the unusual song structure, Lil Baby explained to Billboard:

    "[Drake] sent me the song with a verse on it. I guess I could've put the verse at the end of the song, but we just went in like that. I kept it how he sent it originally."
  • "Yes Indeed" is the first collaboration between the OVO leader and the Quality Control artist. Asked by Billboard in May 2018 how he ended up collaborating with Drake, Lil Baby explained:

    "We've been chopping it up for a while. [Drake] kept saying, 'I'm going to send you something.' He sent it and I sent my verse back. It happened in the last month or two."
  • Lil Baby premiered the song solo on April 6, 2018 at Atlanta's Empire Lounge. It was played for the first time in full just over a month later on OVO Sound Radio, under the title "Pikachu (No Keys)." Lil Baby recalled:

    "When [OVO] played it, people just ripped it from there. They just gave it the name 'Pikachu' and everyone was on using that as the title. We didn't even have a name for the track and then WorldStar grabbed it."
  • The song was produced by Atlanta beatmaker Wheezy, who is also a frequent collaborator with Young Thug. The collaboration took place after the producer just missed Drake while working with Kanye West in Wyoming. After he'd returned to LA, Drake remembered their near hook-up and invited him back to his house to see what he could come up with.

    "I opened up the program and just started pressing s—t," Wheezy recalled to Genius. "Sometimes, I'll have a beat in my head but with me, it starts with the sound first rather than me thinking about the pattern. I started with this pad. The pad was a plug-in called Purity I've been using for a long time."

    After coming up with the foundational sound, Wheezy moved on to the drums, but he couldn't get the vibe he was looking for, so he integrated a flute sample. The beatmaker explained: "I was looking for something way more grimey. I went through this crazy kit that I got from a young producer [named] B Rackz. It had this crazy string-y, flutey sample. I kind of tweaked it. Put some more drip on it."
  • Lil Baby concludes his verse with the line: "Wah wah wah, bitch I'm Lil baby." The rapper admitted to Hot 97's Nessa that he can't take credit for that lyric, it was Offset who freestyled the line while they were in the studio together when he was working on his bars for the song.

    "We was just going back and forth, you know like a lot of times before I go in the booth, you got some bros in the studios, we'll just rap out loud to each other before you're gonna go," he said. "He was like, 'Wah wah wah.' I was like, 'That's hard, we gotta go that way.' I just had to wait for a way to put it in there, and it worked."
  • The leaked title of "Pikachu" references one of Lil Baby's lines.

    Yellow Ferrari like Pikachu

    Baby was inspired by Drake's $7 million yellow LaFerrari, whose color he thought matched that of the Pokémon character Pikachu.

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Stand By Me: The Perfect Song-Movie Combination

Stand By Me: The Perfect Song-Movie CombinationSong Writing

In 1986, a Stephen King novella was made into a movie, with a classic song serving as title, soundtrack and tone.

Modern A Cappella with Peder Karlsson of The Real Group

Modern A Cappella with Peder Karlsson of The Real GroupSong Writing

The leader of the Modern A Cappella movement talks about the genre.

Jeff Trott

Jeff TrottSongwriter Interviews

Sheryl Crow's longtime songwriting partner/guitarist Jeff Trott reveals the stories behind many of the singer's hits, and what its like to be a producer for Leighton Meester and Max Gomez.

Michael Schenker

Michael SchenkerSongwriter Interviews

The Scorpions and UFO guitarist is also a very prolific songwriter - he explains how he writes with his various groups, and why he was so keen to get out of Germany and into England.

Loudon Wainwright III

Loudon Wainwright IIISongwriter Interviews

"Dead Skunk" became a stinker for Loudon when he felt pressure to make another hit - his latest songs deal with mortality, his son Rufus, and picking up poop.

Little Big Town

Little Big TownSongwriter Interviews

"When seeds that you sow grow by the wicked moon/Be sure your sins will find you out/Your past will hunt you down and turn to tell on you."