Update: The music video, released shortly after this post was published, has been added.
In August 2017, TDE staple Jay Rock was in the studio with Detroit’s own Tee Grizzley, and in an Instagram post, TDE head Anthony Tiffith promised that the song would be coming soon. Presumably, the track would appear on Jay Rock’s then-upcoming album, 2018’s Redemption. When the album dropped in June, though, whatever Jay and Grizzley were working on didn’t find its way onto the record. Now, a few months after that album’s release, “Sh*t Real,” which is presumably the collaboration they were working on in the summer of 2017, has been released as a single.
The track, which is barely over two minutes long, has a straightforward instrumental that is either bursting with energy or building anticipation for when the hard-hitting beat comes back in. Lyrically, the song is about, well, real sh*t; Jay raps on the chorus, “You ain’t know it real n****s don’t sit still / If you knew a n****s story you would get chills / If you knew some of them secrets you would get killed / You ain’t knowing sh*t real, sh*t chill, sh*t chill.”
Meanwhile, Grizzley reflects on spending time in prison, saying, “90 days ago I was just in prison, I got out with a vision / and now I’m with Jay Rock and Kendrick / out in Cali tapping in with the realest / when really I wasn’t supposed to see the end of my sentence.”
Listen to “Sh*t Real” above.
