Chamillionaire has returned to the main stage with a rare performance of his 2005 hit “Ridin,” at this year’s Coachella Festival — watch it below.
On Friday (April 14) the Houston rapper and tech entrepreneur joined Tobi Nwigwe during his set on the first day of the California festival to perform their 2022 collaboration “Been Broke” — which also features 2 Chainz.
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After the song wrapped, Chamillionaire addressed the crowd. “One last thing. They also told me ya’ll aren’t really rap fans,” he began. “They say ya’ll just like to take pretty pictures and post them on TikTok, and post ’em on Instagram. Is that true?”
“So, I’m going to give you a test real quick. Let’s see if you know this real rap,” he continued before jumping into a quick acapella performance of his multi-platinum smash “Ridin’” with the crowd chanting behind him.
Chamillionaire performs “Ridin'” at Coachella 15+ years after its release [fire emoji] @chamillionaire@TobeNwigwehttps://t.co/52WCdDrY0Tpic.twitter.com/FnRTM1iffx
— HipHopDX (@HipHopDX) April 15, 2023
The last time we heard from Chamillionaire on the music tip was in 2022, when the Texas rapper released a remix of the popular track as part of an ad spot for Carmax — proving that even after two decades, the original track hasn’t lost its initial appeal.
During a recent interview with HipHopDX, Chamillionaire revealed Universal Records was hesitant to release “Ridin’” as a single. But, to their surprise, it was certified 4x platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in May 2007.
“Honestly, I never tried to make a hit,” Cham told DX. “I always was a person who just tried to make something that I thought would resonate with people. And you got to think about this concept. Everybody, it doesn’t matter whether you’re committing a crime or not, when you see police, you feel like you shiver up and put your seatbelt on.
“You make sure that you’re not breaking any rule, and there was never a theme song for that. I used to feel that feeling all the time coming from where I come from, because when you’re young and coming up in the urban area, sometimes you’re going to have interactions with police.”
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“I was just like, ‘Man, I’m going to make a song for this feeling,’” he said before praising the song’s guest feature Krayzie Bone of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. “And then I put Krayzie Bone on it because he was a real star to me. I grew up on his music, and he killed it. But the record label didn’t even like that song. They didn’t even want that song to be a single. It’s because at the time, singles cost so much.”
“My first single cost me like $150,000 for the beat, and they wanted me to go spend $250,000 on a Timbaland beat, and I wouldn’t do it. Then they were forced to have to put out the song that I wanted, which was Ridin’. That didn’t cost that much to make. And then it just went to the world. I remember being in Jamaica and all the kids, they were screaming the song. It was just everywhere I was going because everybody had that relationship with police, and I was just like, ‘OK, we got something here.’”
Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival continues this weekend. To find out more about the lineup and other info, visit the official website here.
