YBN Cordae & Chance the Rapper Use Past Pain as Inspiration for "Bad Idea"
Cordae serves up a new single in support of his ‘LOST BOY’ album.
Back in April, YBN Cordae debuted two videos for “Have Mercy” to introduce his anticipated studio album The Lost Boy. Continuing his forthcoming LP’s promotional campaign and rollout, the talented young lyricist is teaming up with Chance the Rapper, SiR and Ant Clemons for a Bongo-produced The Lost Boy single known as “Bad Idea.” Notably, Cordae and Chance the Rapper’s “Bad Idea” collaboration comes to us in audio and visual form, with Apluz Filmz stepping in to handle directorial duties for the record’s official music video.
“My brother Chance, you know, did it. Killed the verse, murdered the verse. I really loved the song. It’s one of my favorite songs,” YBN Cordae tells Zane Lowe, sharing his thoughts on his latest single and revealing its back-story for an exclusive interview with Beats 1. “We was both in Coachella. He just came up to me, show love, you know. I just told him … He’s one of the people that inspire me. Took each other’s numbers down. I flew to Chicago actually to get the song done.”
According to Cordae, “Bad Idea” and its lyrical content are particularly meaningful and come from an intensely personal place. “The opening lines to the song is, ‘I know myself far too well to be a stranger of pain.’ I freestyled that line. That’s like immediately what I thought of when I heard that beat. Meaning like, you know, ‘I know what I’ve been through. Everything that I’ve witnessed, everything that I’ve been to to act like I don’t know myself.’ And that’s really essentially what the song is about,” Cordae explains. “It has like good home vibes, good summer vibes, like good nostalgic feeling to it. But like, not in a forceful way, cause I feel like now everybody’s bringing back the nostalgic way, but in a force, you know what I’m saying? Like, it got to come natural. You know what I’m saying? This one feels real natural.”
Besides Chance the Rapper, Cordae’s Lost Boy project also boasts songs with Anderson .Paak, Meek Mill and Pusha T. “I got an amazing record with Anderson .Paak that’s on the way that I’m really excited about for the album. He’s a genius to the highest degree. He’s a genius,” Cordae reveals. “Anderson .Paak is probably like my closest friend in music and one of my closest friends in life in general. It’s like my big brother so making the record with him was really fun … I’ve got something crazy with Meek Mill, with Pusha T. And my project isn’t like feature-stacked heavy. And I tried to get features that most n****s can’t get. Nobody got an Anderson .Paak feature. You know what I’m saying? Anderson, he stayed to his own because he’s premium. He’s Marvin Gaye, James Brown. That’s Anderson .Paak … And every feature came about extremely naturally. We’re all in the studio together. Everybody I made a song with, we was in the studio together at the same time. So the vibes got to come together super naturally and everybody had a marquee verse. Their verse added, made the song way better. I’m really blessed and honored to have them on it.”
You can take a look at the Aplus Filmz-directed music video for YBN Cordae and Chance the Rapper’s new The Lost Boy collaboration and single “Bad Idea” above. YBN Cordae’s new studio album The Lost Boy is expected to hit streaming services and similar platforms towards the end of July.
Last month, PUMA announced that YBN Cordae has become their newest youth ambassador.
