André 3000 and Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) joined forces for the cathartic “Life of the Party” in 2021, which landed on the deluxe version of West’s Donda album. It was an untraditional road to eventually landing on streaming services, as Drake actually leaked the track on his Sound 42 SiriusXM radio show first. And now, André is explaining why he wanted off the collab.
Three Stacks joined The New York Times’ Popcast on Saturday (Dec. 21), where he — in addition to performing in the NYT newsroom — sat down for a nearly 90-minute interview. Part of the discussion included him detailing and debunking everything surrounding his “Life of the Party” team-up with Ye in 2021.
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With André and Ye both losing their moms and the album being named after Ms. Donda West, Three Stacks credited West with inspiring him to speak on the tragic loss. “I was speaking as if I’m speaking to his mom to tell a message to my mom,” he said. “That song opened me up to say things that I couldn’t have said without Kanye.”
However, Yeezy didn’t want any cursing on the project, so the Outkast legend offered to have his verse taken off the song altogether, since he didn’t approve of there being strictly clean versions of such a poignant record.
“Ye was at a point where he didn’t want any curse words on the album and I said, ‘Yeah I’m cool with it.’ I’m totally fine with no curse words,” André 3000 said. “But take me off the song because I’d written it a certain way. I was cool with beeped versions, but you have to put the dirty version of it out too.”
Dre continued: “He told me, ‘I told my daughter that I would not have any curse words on the album,’ I said, ‘Yeah, man, the kids for sure. So just take me off.’”
He also clarified that he knew West was going to be taking shots at Drake on the track amid their feud, but attempted to reason with Ye about whether this song was the proper playground for that. “I heard the diss part,” he shared. “Me and Kanye had a convo about it. I had my feelings about it. I was like, ‘Man, do you really want to do this on this type of song? It’s like going and shooting up your mom’s funeral.’”
An explicit version ended up landing on streaming services in November 2021. “Life of the Party” reached No. 3 on the Hot Gospel Songs chart and No. 47 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
Watch the full interview below.
