For the fifth day of our 12 Days of Christmas interview extravaganza, we spoke with super-producer Zaytoven, who offered details about the Gucci Mane Verzuz Jeezy battle, as well as his unreleased music with some of the biggest stars in the world.
In the week just before his passing, King Von was spotted in the studio with Zaytoven, and, according to the Atlanta producer, they have something special in the vault.
"Man, the energy be so crazy ‘cause I always meet these young artists and they just be good guys. They seem like they’re just a good, good person, you know what I mean," said Zay about King Von. "I come in there and play beats, he like, ‘ooo.’ You know, they startin’ to rap, soon as I turn the beats on, ‘Oh, I need that one.’ ‘Oh, I need this one for sure.’ He started recording soon as I came and dropped the beats off. So I just felt like, ‘Okay, me and him finna have something special.’ You know, ain’t nobody expect me and King Von to have something special. So, we finna have sumn’ special."
Zaytoven is unsure if the public will ever get the chance to hear the song, which mirrors his situation with the late Juice WRLD, who he has also recorded with.
"I don’t know, man," he said about any possible release plans for the King Von record. "Just like Juice WRLD. When I was working with Juice WRLD, Juice WRLD said, like, ‘I got eight songs. I need you to make sure you don’t give these beats to nobody.’ And he’d play them for me on FaceTime, I’d be like, ‘Man, that’s so hard, that’s so dope.’ And then he passed and it’s like, ‘Man, we had some of the dopest music.’ I wish the world could hear it, but, you know."
Of course, we've also seen Kanye West get in the studio with Zay, but those collaborations are also uncertain.
"I wish I could play what we did in the studio that day with Chance and Kanye," said Zaytoven about a session several years ago. "‘Cause the beat was made in five minutes, and he just automatically -- he did what any other rapper would. He grabbed the microphone and just started freestyling and I was like, ‘Man, this man is going so crazy right now.’ It sounds so hard. I wish the world could hear it. And I’d never been in the studio with Kanye before."
At the end of the day, he doubts that we'll ever see a general release of that Kanye and Chance track.
"I mean, Kanye, he’s more of a gospel artist now, and I ain’t mad at that at all. So, you know, I doubt it," he said. "I haven’t had that much time with Kanye to really connect with him on [a spiritual] level. I’m definitely proud of him. I definitely feel like he’s making a major move in what he’s doing. Even in the gospel, he done it so big that -- I’m a fan, man, like, ‘Dang, he done it super-big.’ I’d love to do something with him on that level. I did a project with Lecrae, Let The Trap Say Amen, and we did well with that so to do something with Kanye on a gospel level would be amazing to do."
Fingers crossed that we'll get to hear some of Zaytoven's most hyped unreleased collaborations. Read our full interview with Zaytoven here.