"The Dreamville sessions were amazing," says Guapdad4000, the subject of our latest Between The Lines installment. "Life-changing. The best musical learning experience ever. It was literally like the tournament saga in any anime, where all the main characters have to come and meet in one place, and like, show off they special moves. I had met J. Cole at the club. I was leaving the club with Drake and my pops, we was supposed to go to another bar where Drake wanted to go - he wanted to go eat - he ended up not going, but when I got there J. Cole was there, and he already knew who I was. He showed me love. He was like 'bro, you funny, but at the same time you got fuckin bars."
"I was like, J. Cole just told me I had fuckin bars! These n***as can't tell me shit," he laughs. "So before I left, he got my number, he texted me like instantly. I got an invitation." Rest assured, Guap certainly made the best of his opportunity, contributing a hook to one of the album's lead singles "Costa Rica." "Pyrex made the beat, the homie Pyrex, he was on a roll," reflects Guap. "He played that shit, and I instantly knew, cause that day I had already done like six hooks. I was rapping so much the first day. I was like, today is the hook day. He played it, and I was like ouuu, he got the guitar.This the one. Load this up."
Image via HNHH
"He was kind of looking like, 'this is supposed to go to somebody else, but he didn't know who was talking," says Guap. "But he looked and saw the durag, and he respected it. The first part of the hook came to me, and Bas, big-ass head was jumping around, shaking his dreads n' shit. He had a cadence to how he wanted to come in, and I just jumped in after him." If you watched the Revenge documentary, you're likely well aware of Buddy's influence on the sessions - case in point, his fingerprints are all over "Costa Rica." "Buddy had inspired it," admits Guap. "He was like, keep going, I only had two bars...I went on my phone, and started looking at my statistics." Upon discovering that he, quite literally, has fans in "Costa Rica."
"It's a really simple hook," he says. "The first line is because Buddy had on all-gold AP, and we was drunk and talking about how he had to bust it down. Then we got to talking about how it would devalue the actual watch....But I was like, we ignorant n***as and we gon' bus' it down anyway." As for the following line, Guap explains that it came from an encounter with a "bummy" young lady, whose attire derived from "peonic origins." "That's not something I fuck with personally," he says. "That just goes back to elevating yourself. That's what the song is about."
