Fivio Foreign‘s debut album B.I.B.L.E. arrived last Friday (April 8) complete with A-list appearances from A$AP Rocky, Quavo, Alicia Keys and more. But the most intriguing name on the guest list was Kanye West, who not only appears on the single “City of Gods,” but executive produced the project, as Fivio announced on Twitter last August.
Kanye isn’t technically listed as an executive producer in the album credits, a point Angie Martinez mentioned to Fivio during a visit to her Power 105.1 radio show earlier this week. But as the Brooklyn drill star explained, the Chicago rap icon was very much involved in bringing his debut LP together.
“He’s definitely [the executive producer],” he said in the interview. “I had the album basically ready, finessed and done. I let him hear it and he was like, ‘I wanna help you.’ You know, he’s a producer, too, so he arranged some drums around, called in for a feature. He’s the reason Alicia Keys is on [‘City of Gods’]. Just, like, making it more of a masterpiece. Leveling it up. Him and Mike Dean, too.”
Fivio Foreign revealed he “immediately said yes” when Kanye West asked to executive produce his album, but he wasn’t the only one filled with excited.
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“Ye was like, ‘[I] want to go viral.’ I’m like, ‘So let’s go viral,'” he added. “He was saying it out loud. He was getting a massage and was like, ‘B.I.B.L.E., Fivio Foreign, executive produced by Kanye West. I like how it sound!’ I was like, ‘Yeah, me too!'”
As for the album title, the 32-year-old clarified B.I.B.L.E. was his idea, not Kanye’s, but the name resonated with the “Jesus Walks” rapper all the same. “When I told him that was my album title, he was like, ‘That’s crazy!'” he remembered. “He just felt like it was meant to be. Destiny.”
Fivio Foreign — who saw his stock rise last year thanks to his show-stealing verse on DONDA‘s “Off the Grid” — delved deeper into his working relationship with Kanye West during an appearance on DJ Akademiks’ Off the Record podcast in February.
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“He wake up everyday at six in the morning, no matter what he country he’s at,” he explained. “He’s in tune, he’s always working. He’ll be in the studio recording and he’ll be like, ‘Hold on.’ He’ll have somebody from some type of big company or the prince or princess of Saudi Arabia fly over.
“And he’d work something out, he’ll build a building, design it real fast and then come lay a few more bars down, and then work on some Yeezy’s real fast. He’s doing it like that.”
Kanye West Wanted JAY-Z On 'City Of Gods' - But Was Too Impatient Says Fivio Foreign
The admiration between the two rappers is clearly mutual. While chopping it up with the Los Angeles Leakers on Power 106 last September, Fivio recalled Kanye comparing him to another Brooklyn rap heavyweight after he laid down his “Off the Grid” verse.
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“I go Ye, who I remind you of? Who I remind you of?” he said. “He like, ‘I don’t know, that’s a good question.’ The question went past so I guess we start eating or whatever. Then something hit him. He go, ‘I got it! Hov!’ I’m like, ‘Word? Hov?’ He say, ‘Hov!’”
Fivio recently revealed Kanye West planned to get JAY-Z on their Alicia Keys collaboration “City of Gods,” but the Yeezy mogul “wanted it out so fast” the feature never happened.
Watch Fivio Foreign’s full interview with Angie Martinez below.
