Bad Idea
by Cordae (featuring Chance the Rapper)

Album: The Lost Boy (2019)
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Songfacts®:

  • Over a mellow production, Cordae (known as YBN Cordae at the time) trades bars with Chance the Rapper about maneuvering through the inescapable highs and lows of life. The track marks the rappers' first collaboration on wax.
  • The song is centered on a repeated line on the hook where Cordae speaks about struggling to go back home.

    And it might not be such a bad idea if I never went home again
    See, it might not be such a bad idea if I never went home again
    So don't you cry, little baby, little baby


    The lyrics are an interpolation of Gil Scott-Heron's 1971 track "Home Is Where the Hatred Is (Pieces of a Man Version)," where he sings:

    Home is where the hatred is
    Home is filled with pain and it
    Might not be such a bad idea if I never
    Never went home again


    Kanye West previously sampled the same lyrics on the outro of his 2005 Late Registration track "My Way Home."
  • Asked by Billboard what he means by not wanting to go home again, Cordae said that The Lost Boy has a concept running through it of a journey. The track "Have Mercy," he explained, is taking the "first step into that fire" as he embarks on his journey."

    "Bad Idea" has a similar vibe in which he's "looking back and with home, you can still see it from a distance, like, 'Nah. It wouldn't be a bad idea if I never went home again. I'm leaving the crib. I'm never going home again.'"
  • The song also samples Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway's track "Be Real Black for Me."

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