You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made.

I'm Rishi Kesh Hirway.

This episode contains explicit language.

Hip Boy is an award-winning producer and rapper from L.A.

He's one of my all-time favorite producers, from backseat freestyle by

Kendrick Lamar to Sigomode by Travis Scott to tracks he's made for Beyonce, Nas, and the Jay-Z

and Kanye album Watch the Throne. So I was really excited to talk to him, and when I asked him

which song from his incredible catalog he wanted to talk about, I was really moved by his choice.

He picked Racks in the Middle by Nipsey Hustle featuring Roddy Ridge. Nipsey Hustle was a

rapper and community activist from L.A., whose career was cut short, tragically, when he was

murdered in 2019. He'd released just one album, Victory Lap. Racks in the middle was the last song released in Nipsey's lifetime. It went platinum, and a year after his death, it won the Grammy for best rap performance in 2020. This episode features a few short clips from a video that Nipsey Hustle made for the website Genius back in 2019. There's a link to the full video that he made in the show notes. But here in the studio to tell the story, I spoke to Hit Boy about how racks in the middle came together. And I've been riding solo trying to rebuild. I was right around in the V-12 with the racks in the middle. Had to pray to Almighty God they let my dog out to kill him you get it straight up by the mud you can't imagine these shit

I've been pulling up in the drop tops with the baddest bitch

Young nigger been focused on my check

Yeah, I'll go by the name of hit boy

I'm on YouTube a lot That's why I discover a lot of new artists and just new music and what's going on.

So Riding Rich, he had a song called Die Young.

This is before he was signed or anything.

Like he was just like an independent artist doing this thing.

And I just kept playing Die Young every day at the studio.

I would just come in, watch the video, show it to people, just share it.

And I was just like, yo, this song is crazy.

This kid is about to go, you know, insane in the industry.

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