Juvenile‘s 1998 smash “Back That Azz Up” was famously sampled by Drake for his 2011 album Take Care, and the New Orleans legend is still reaping the benefits over a decade later.
During a conversation with Jeremy Hecht for HipHopDX published on Wednesday (October 23), Juve recalled hearing Drizzy’s reworked version “Practice” when it first came through and confirmed he’s still receiving royalties from the sample, as well as from others who have used the beat (which includes Beyoncé, City Girls, Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign and more.)
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“I was told it wasn’t gonna be like mine and they were like, ‘Listen to it,’” he said. “And I listened to it like, ‘This is Drake, mothafucka. I don’t need to fucking listen to it. Let’s clear it. It’s Drake!’ And they were like, ‘Nah, listen to it.’ And I listened to it and was like, ‘Okay, he made his own creative way of it. How much?’ [laughs] Nah but seriously man, Drake always do things his own way, so I wasn’t expecting him to do it the way I did it. He did it his own way and it worked.”
He continued: “I actually do [still get random checks from that]. Shout out to all the cats that wanna sample it. Me and Mannie Fresh still own our publishing and everything so please, sample it! ”
“Back That Azz Up” is not the only Juvenile record that has been sampled, and most recently, Eminem used the classic hit “Ha” on his new album The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce).
On the back half of the track “Road Rage,” Em prominently samples the 1998 single which later featured JAY-Z on the remix.
Speaking with Hot 97’s DJ Drewski in August, Juve and Mannie Fresh opened up their thoughts.
“Shout out to Eminem. He just took ‘Ha,’” Juvenile began. “We can’t do nothing with these songs sitting down, we can’t make no money with these songs just sitting down so I applaud the artists, especially the artists that are real good at it that got talent.”
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Fresh then weighed in: “I think it’s the biggest homage anybody can pay to you when it’s a credible artist. When somebody like Eminem uses your song or when Jay jumped on ‘Ha,’ that’s like, ‘Wow.’
“It’s incredible because if you’re sitting down in a barber shop and we talking, you can stick your chest out and be like, ‘But did Eminem ever rap on any of your beats?’ [Laughs]. ‘Did Jay ever rap on any of your beats?’”
