2017 has been another great musical year and sonically, it is as diverse as ever. With the sheer quantity of music that drops on a daily basis across various platforms worldwide, it can be difficult to keep up with what is current and what is popping.
Moreover, with so much music being released into the public domain, it only means that more musicians are emerging onto the scene. In keeping up to date with releases, it can be extremely easy to overlook the foundations behind the sound waves that we consume daily.
Over the past year or so, there has been an on-going debate as to whether producers receive enough recognition as the singers and rappers who lay down their vocals over it. An example of this was during French Montana’s interview for the infamous New York based radio show, The Breakfast Club, where French discussed the titanic success of his song Unforgettable, featuring Rae Sremmurd’s Swae Lee; a track which really helped elevate French into the mainstream. The issue arose after French was unable to correctly name one of the producers behind the track, Toronto’s Jaegen, who works closely with vibrant and fellow six-side artist Ramriddlz.
With all this being said, the state of music today sees a lot of synthesis between genres, with producers being major elements to the creation of artists signature sounds. Over the years, Drake has worked with a tight community of in house producers such as Boi1nda, T-Minus, Vinylz and of course Noah “40” Shebib, in his pursuit to create the signature woeful and at times, baleful OVO sound.
His most recent project, More Life, which released in March of this year, saw Drake experiment once again with new cadences. A standout, which was popular amongst all audiences, was the track “Passionfruit”. The single, which is now platinum in the UK after surpassing 600,000 certified units, takes on a placid, docile sound, seeing Drake return to his harmonious singing roots.
As part of their Decoded series on YouTube, Genius partnered up with Hackney born Nana Rogues, who was responsible for the genius, yet modest “Passionfruit” track, fully documenting the journey behind what became one of Drakes greatest commercial singles to date.
In the video, Rogues explains how the track came about after meeting Drake at a Section Boys show back in 2016, which lead to a back and forth relationship, seeing various music being sent to the OVO camp. Rogues, who is also responsible for Section Boyz’ 2015 hit “Trappin Aint Dead” explained how “Passionfruit” was not made for Drake himself, and slight alterations such as the introduction of the track were made after Drake decided to record over it.
The video, viewable above, closely documents the entire creative process behind the track, giving viewers an opportunity to really immerse themselves in and appreciate the influences behind what is one of the biggest songs of 2017.