Rubbin Off The Paint

Album: Single release only (2017)
Charted: 46

Songfacts®:

  • Birmingham, Alabama-based rapper YBN Nahmir blew up with this freestyle, which was accompanied by his first ever music video.
  • Free Lil Tay, know he keep a 'K. but he not Tay-K
    I up the chop and let it blow him, watch this bitch heat his face


    The lyric caused more than a few eyebrows to be raised as it seemed Nahmir was dissing fellow southern teen rapper Lil Tay, who was facing a murder charge. However the Birmingham rhymer told Genius he didn't intend any beef.

    "When I made this song, I was I messing around on YouTube," he explained. "My brother here just got locked up on a gun charge. That's why I was like, 'Free Latay no you keep a K when not Tay Kay.' Tay Kay was popping at the time, so I was like, 'They probably gonna think I'm talking about Tay Kay.' I say, 'Free Latay,' but I had to put that in there. I was just searching for beats on YouTube and I found it, and I went crazy. I put everything that was going on in my life in that song. I was basically talking s--t in that song. I was just talking my s--t."
  • But I'm that nigga, I won't ever change, rubbin' off the paint
    Smokin' dank, got a Uzi in my lap, I let it bang.


    The song title is a term used for scratching serial numbers off weapons. Serial numbers are scratched off to avoid the risk of having a bullet casing tracked back to the firearm it was shot from.
  • With the song's success came controversy as Nahmir claimed his old manager tried to sell on the rights to the track's beat. He addressed the dilemma on Instagram:

    "ALL YOUNG ARTISTS BEWARE. Early on, one of my old managers helped me buy the Rubbin beat off line. Once s--t started moving, he got excited and then, w/o my knowledge and on some greedy s--t let one these big record company niggas finesse him into selling the beat to them. Then the company tried to force me to do a deal with them claiming they own my song."
  • The song starts with producer Izak's tag, which is dialogue sampled from the SpongeBob Squarepants episode, "Fear of a Krabby Patty."
  • I'm cookin up in the lab like I'm Rick and Morty

    YBN told Genius that though he is a fan of cartoons like SpongeBob Squarepants, he only watches Rick and Morty if he's home from school and it's on the TV. He makes the reference to the show as he was just talking about it at school a few days before he started writing my song. YBN explained:

    "They were just talking about, Nick you need Rick and Morty. I'm like, nah I'm finna watch that s--t. But then like, I don't know what happened. I just feeling it, cooking up in the lab like Rick and Morty because I've seen it. I've seen the little YouTube videos on it, and I'm like, 'Alright let me put that in the song, that sound hella hard, they're gonna f--k with that.' So I put that up in there."

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