Untouchable

Album: King Push - Darkest Before Dawn: The Prelude (2015)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • The song's thunderous beat was supplied by the hitmaker Timbaland. "I basically just hit Tim up one night," Pusha T explained on Genius. "I work out of his studio in Virginia. He's never there, and he literally lets me record whatever I want to record for free. So we've always had a rapport, simply on that note - he never owed me no music, or no beats. But I just asked him, like 'Yo. What's up man, I need some heat.'"
  • The braggadocios banger features a vocal sample from Notorious B.I.G.'s verse on Pudgee's 1995 cut "Think Big." Pusha said: "[Timbaland] gave me the beat as is. He gave me everything with the B.I.G. line in it. It was based around rap and feeling untouchable. He called me with that untouchable attitude, and I definitely had the untouchable rap attitude, and attacked it that way."
  • Rolling Stone asked Pusha T how the collaboration with Timbaland came together. He replied: "I work in Timbaland's studio in Virginia a lot and I reached out to him because I wanted to do things that people hadn't heard and I've never worked with Timbaland and people were like 'why hasn't that happened yet?' We're both from Virginia and I was raised around this guy. We had just never done it. But you know, my friends that are in music, they've been my friends for all my life, so I don't sort of see it how everybody else sees it."

    "Anyway, I asked for it and he called me at 4:30 in the morning ranting and raving about how he is hip-hop and how nobody can touch team Timbo. He was like, 'You asked me for something and I'm giving you everything that you're looking for and you don't need to look nowhere else because I am hip-hop!' Those were his words to me and then he sent me a file that included 'Untouchable.'"

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Wedding Bell Blues

Wedding Bell BluesSong Writing

When a song describes a wedding, it's rarely something to celebrate - with one big exception.

Rickie Lee Jones

Rickie Lee JonesSongwriter Interviews

Rickie Lee Jones on songwriting, social media, and how she's handling Trump.

Sarah Brightman

Sarah BrightmanSongwriter Interviews

One of the most popular classical vocalists in the land is lining up a trip to space, which is the inspiration for many of her songs.

Bill Medley of The Righteous Brothers

Bill Medley of The Righteous BrothersSongwriter Interviews

Medley looks back on "Unchained Melody" and "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" - his huge hits from the '60s that were later revived in movies.

Bill Withers

Bill WithersSongwriter Interviews

Soul music legend Bill Withers on how life experience and the company you keep leads to classic songs like "Lean On Me."

The Police

The PoliceFact or Fiction

Do their first three albums have French titles? Is "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" really meaningless? See if you can tell in this Fact or Fiction.