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 Hirwe.

Jack Harlow is from Louisville, Kentucky, and started performing and releasing music in 2015 when he was in high school.

In 2020, he released his first album,

which went double platinum. He was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rap Performance. He's had

multiple number one hits across his first three albums. And for his fourth album, Monica,

which just came out in March 2026, he switched things up dramatically. And I was curious how and why?

How did someone who had so much success as a rapper approach a new way of making music?

So for this episode, I spoke to Jack Harlow about the song Say Hello, which is the closing

track on Monica.

Oh, oh, say hello. is the closing track on Monica.

My name's Jack Harlow.

I was working on a different album for two years after Jackman, my last one. And it was good, but I didn't think it was exciting or surprising.

It just wasn't distinct enough.

And it also felt like something I'd done before, which, you know, repeating yourself is boring.

And I was getting more and more frustrated and I was dreading going to the studio.

And, you know, as soon as recording becomes work, you're in trouble, I think.

Not that there's no work ethic involved.

Of course, sometimes you have to grind it out.

But when you're trying to get inspired and it feels like labor that's something to take

as a sign so finally i just took three weeks off i remember talking about it with my engineer right

before i took that three week break and sort of having to reconcile it in front of him almost a little

...