The Weeknd will soon be dropping his third studio album Starboy. In an interview with Zane Lowe, he spoke on his experience working with Kendrick Lamar. Lamar is featured on the Starboy track “Sidewalks.”
Weeknd says,
“He’s a genius. He is really a genius. He’d walk around. He’d play the record over and over again. I played him songs, the Starboy theme of course, which he incorporated into his verse. He would just walk around. We had food. He’s writing his verse in his head. He would go into his phone, look at it a few and then put it back and start walking around. He then at one point he went into the studio booth and I closed the door and I could hear him yelling his verse in his head. He was really committed, you can tell he put his all into. It wasn’t just a random Kendrick Lamar verse, it was something special because again, I don’t like to say this all the time, but we’ve known each other for a while and it’s crazy how we started connecting on this record.”
In the interview he also spoke on sobriety, performance anxiety, and more. He says,
“You have to fight the nerves. You’re singing to people, it’s an emotional thing. You aren’t normal if you sing to people. You aren’t a normal person. It’s nerve-racking,” he explained. “You’re putting yourself out to hundreds and thousands of people. If you ever see young artists and they’re not sounding good, they sound good. They’re good singers. They wouldn’t be where they are if they didn’t sound good. It’s their nerves. Any time you see your favorite artist and he’s or she’s screwing up or not hitting those notes, it’s not because she can’t hit it or she can’t sing, he or she is scared. You have to fight that. That’s something I had to do and once I did, I feel like people are more nervous to see me than I am to see them. I love performing”
Source: Complex
