While speaking on a Watch The Throne recording session, which featured Jay Z, Kanye West, Beyoncé, Ryan Leslie, and a handful of other artists, Texas producer S1 shared the story of how Kanye’s “Guilt Trip” was created and how the track ended up on the rapper’s Yeezus album.
According to S1, he was in a studio session in London with the artists mentioned when he, Mike Dean, and No I.D. began creating beats for possible placement on Watch The Throne.
“I was in London with Kanye and Jay,” S1 said during an interview with DJ Booth. “We were in the studio together. Mike Dean was with us. Ryan Leslie was out there with us. Beyoncé was there with us. So, we were in this room and—No I.D. was with us as well. So, we were in this room together…They had a mic set right here and a mic set right here. So, Kanye was there. Jay was there. And right in the room, like on this step I had a little production set-up. No I.D. had a production set-up. Mike Dean. So, we were up there and we was just doing our thing making beats. We would play beats for Kanye and Jay. They would ‘yay’ or ‘nay’ it.”
The producer revealed that it was during that Watch The Throne session when the “Guilt Trip” beat was made. As the collaborative album between Kanye and Jay progressed, S1 says the “Guilt Trip” record no longer fit the project.
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Although “Guilt Trip” was later featured on Kanye’s solo album, Yeezus, S1 shared that an unfinished verse from Jay Z for “Guilt Trip” does exist.
“‘Guilt Trip’ was actually a beat I had did on the spot there,” the beatsmith said. “And it was an idea that I did. Played it for Kanye and Jay and Jay just was like ‘Yo, what’s this? We need that now.’ So, I passed it to Mike Dean. Mike Dean added some things to it. Gave it to them. Kanye laid his verse. They laid a hook. And it was one of those songs where as the Watch The Throne album continued to progress you can kind of tell it wasn’t in that zone. But Kanye would always tell me ‘Yo, we gonna use this for something’…There was like a freestyle type of, a little piece of a Jay verse. He never finished it…So, the track didn’t make the Watch The Throne album. But like I said when Kanye started working on Yeezus—I was doing all these other tracks for Yeezus. He had like 15, 20 tracks held from me. And none of those wind up making the album. But the ‘Guilt Trip’ he pulled. He was like ‘Yo, I wanna use this for the album.’”
Also featured on the Yeezus version of “Guilt Trip” is Cleveland, Ohio rapper Kid Cudi. Despite being featured on the track, Cudi revealed that he felt flattered then underused on the song, during an interview with Complex earlier this year.
“The vocal that I did on that song was a couple years old,” Kid Cudi said in February. “I forgot which session it was, but it was just a reference. I discovered that I was on the song via Twitter. I saw kids hitting me up, like, ‘Are you on ‘Guilt Trip!?’’ or saying ‘Great job!’ and I’m like, ‘What the fuck is everyone talking about?’ So I go on Twitter and then I hear the song and I’m like, ‘OK. I know the beat. I know the song.’ Then I’m like, ‘Oh man, OK.’ Part of me was flattered, like, it’s kind of cool that he thought of me. Then I started thinking about it more. It was like, Why not call me and have me come in there and give it? Why underuse me? Why put four bars of vocals to coax my fans into thinking this is a legitimate Kid Cudi feature on this song and it isn’t?”
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