DJ Dahi says Kendrick Lamar's "Count Me Out" was meant to be on his own album

In an interview with Rolling Stone published last Friday (27 May), DJ Dahi spoke about Kendrick Lamar's Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers album, and revealed that "Count Me Out" was originally meant for his own album.

"It’s funny because originally that piece of music was actually for my album," DJ Dahi explained. "That was from a jam session that I had done with my guys, Eli and Danny — Danny McKinney is an incredible guitar player. We were just at the house, jamming out ideas."

He continued, "Originally we had worked on this song idea and I had hired a choir to work on a bunch of ideas that I had for my album. I was like "I am using this, this shit is fire." But I sent it to Kendrick, like, "What do you think?" And he was like, "Yo, I love it." He was like, "This shit is crazy," and he started writing to it, and he was like, "Yo, bro, I think I might need it. This is exactly what I need." Just knowing him and his process, it’s like, all right, yeah. Maybe it’s a good thing or bad thing, but I don’t hold on to music. If I trust other artists or what they do creatively, I’ll let things go because it’s more about the messenger."

"There’s so many versions of that record," DJ Dahi added. "I can think of like 10, no, actually 20, 30 versions of that record that we tried and did and molded. It was because we were thinking of how it can fit today’s world, and that’s the biggest thing. How does it fit into a certain type of space where people can get that feeling? I think at the end of the day, my motto is "A record is a demo until it actually comes out." A lot of trials, but the end product I’m really happy with, just because I think the heart of the record is still there, which is cool. The way it feels, the way it picks up the energy, the message it has is still there. That’s the most important thing. You can even do an acoustic version of that song. Literally made that idea about three or four years ago."

Speaking about how many songs Lamar recorded while working on his latest album, DJ Dahi said, "I can tell you, for sure, he has probably like 30 songs from me — I mean, he obviously has songs he’ll complete but also a lot of it is an idea, and it’s a really dope idea. Then we plug that idea in as a hook or a verse line. With this creative process it’s really just getting those ideas out and then being able to come back and be like, "Oh, I can use this or this part of this." His process of recording is pretty nuts. So I wouldn’t be surprised if we looked at the hard drive and he has thousands of songs."