Free Nationals recently released their self-titled debut album, and one of the most notable guests on the record was Mac Miller, whose contributions to “Time” marked his first official posthumously released verse. It turns out Miller’s lyrics were almost changed from how they appear on the released song, as he strongly considered altering them after his break-up with Ariana Grande.
In a recent interview with Pilerats, Free Nationals’ Kelsey Gonzalez spoke about Miller’s work on the song, saying that Miller initially wanted to make some changes to the track following his Ariana Grande break-up:
“Anderson [.Paak] gave it to Mac, and Mac absolutely murdered it. Yeah, it was so great, the way it came about. I remember getting a phone call from Mac just before he passed, and he was like, he had just broken up with [Grande]… man, the way he said it was so gangster, man! He was like, ‘Bro, some things in my life have happened and things changed, so maybe I want to like change a couple of lines in my verse, if that’s cool?’ I was like, ‘Of course it’s cool!’ I was sitting next to Anderson, like we’re eating, and he hears what I’m saying, he’s like, ‘No!’ I was like, ‘Nah dude, you’re good, just send it, it’s pending, whatever, you’re good, I don’t care, do what you wanna do, you’re the artist!’
Miller didn’t end up following through with that, though, as Gonzalez continued, “Maybe the next day he texts me, he’s like, ‘Bro you know, it’s all good, I love it the way it is.’ […] I think he was scared of sounded like he was simping, you know, like begging for love. And really, the song is a timepiece, so beautiful the way it is. That was his place at that time in his life. It was a cool thing to be a part of.”
He also revealed that the .Paak albums Oxnard and Ventura were originally planned to be one double album. He went on to speak about working with Dr. Dre, saying, “Working with Dre was so beautiful because he’s such a legend, and he has such a great ear and a great eye for what will work, but then at the same time, he gave us so much. He has so much respect for us, and [he] let us do our thing, so much that when it was a question of style, he would look at us. He’d be like, ‘Well, what do you think?’ We’re like, ‘Well, I mean, that’s kind of corny, maybe don’t do that, and that’s actually pretty cool, so maybe do that?’ This dude is my idol, and being able to sit there with him and have him like, show Anderson so much respect, show all of us so much respect, was just surreal.”
Read the full interview here.
