A Boogie wit da Hoodie recently shared his latest project, Hoodie SZN, featuring the Jahaan Sweet-produced “Look Back at It.” The single interpolates two Michael Jackson songs, “Remember the Time” and “You Rock My World,” the latter of which caused the single to be held up for sample clearance.
In separate interviews with Hot 97 and XXL, the Bronx rapper explained that he grew up as a big fan of Jackson’s music thanks to his mother, and those two songs are his favorites because of their music videos.
“It was a lady that had a percentage of ‘You Rock My World,’ and she couldn’t clear the song mentally,” A Boogie told Hot 97 about the delay. “We had to get her mom to take action.”
A Boogie is speaking about Nora Payne, a singer-songwriter who also has writing credits on hits by artists such as Toni Braxton, Britney Spears, and Brandy. In late October 2017, Payne was found safe in a Chicago hospital three weeks after going missing.
In the XXL interview, A Boogie added that the song went through many iterations:
It was kind of slow first, and I made an Instagram video [that] sped up it up by accident… After I made the video, it sounded more catchy and the tempo was perfect… I just fell in love with that version of the song like that, so I ended up going back to the song, flipping it again, making the speed different, making the voice kind of a little more different. I did mad stuff with that song and by the time I put it out, it was back to normal."
The post-chorus of “Look Back at It” interpolates one of Jackson’s riffs from “Remember the Time,” as Genius' Head of Artist Relations Rob Markman breaks down in an annotation:
On the first verse, A Boogie interpolates the melody of “You Rock My World.” Genius contributors lonemoon and BD-EyEz break it down:
As A Boogie himself points out, it’s rare for an artist to receive sample clearance from Jackson’s estate. “That’s a blessing right there ‘cause nobody really get to do that,” he said on Hot 97. “Besides Drake doing that feature thing, I don’t know nobody that got Michael Jackson clearance.”
It’s worth noting, however, that Drake actually secured previously unreleased vocals for the hook of “Don’t Matter to Me” rather than a sample.
Genius previously explained how Michael Jackson’s legacy influenced hip-hop:
Read all the lyrics to A Boogie wit da Hoodie’s “Look Back at It” as well as Michael Jackson’s “Remember the Time” and “You Rock My World” on Genius now.
