Kodak Black is readying his new album, Dying to Live, for release this Friday, December 14. During a discussion of the project and its viral lead single, “ZEZE,” on Miami’s 103.5 The Beat, Kodak revealed that he was never a big fan of his early hit, “No Flockin.” Although the song’s viral success helped Kodak break out in 2014, he didn’t view it as his best work.
“I really let the streets pick it. I don’t even think ‘ZEZE’ was supposed to be my single, but they like it,” Kodak said about his new album. “‘No Flockin,’ to tell you the truth, I really don’t like that song. I was just saying anything because people was smoking flakka at that time. So I was making fun of my homeboys who started smoking that, my uncle was smoking that. I was just clowning them, but it went viral.”
“No Flockin” broke out in 2014 in part thanks to a cosign from Drake, who played the song on an early episode of OVO Sound Radio. On the track, Kodak mocks users of flakka, a synthetic hallucinogenic drug that gained attention due to a series of high-profile news stories in Florida in 2014 and 2015:
I just bought a new old Jag, yeah, it’s so fast
Smokin' flakka, you a jackass, all I smoke is gas
The song became an even bigger hit thanks to Cardi B, who borrowed Kodak’s flow for her 2017 breakout hit, “Bodak Yellow.”
Kodak isn’t the only rapper who has let fan feedback determine what becomes a single. In a July 2017 interview with Everyday Struggle, 21 Savage revealed that he prefers to let his fans pick his hits. “I just like to create my music and just drop it,” he said. “When you put out a single you’re damn near telling fans they gotta like this because this your single. I’d rather just put out a whole album and have them pick what they like they most and make that the single.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Kodak revealed that Dying to Live has a sample of Malcolm X as well as features from Juice WRLD and Lil Pump. “I would never really work with him, but I did it and I know it’s gonna stream,” he said about the Pump feature. The album is also expected to include “ZEZE,” “If I’m Lyin, I’m Flyin,” and “Calling My Spirit.”
Meanwhile, Kodak is continuing to deal with an unresolved sexual assault case in South Carolina. He is reportedly set to stand trial in the case in April 2019.
Watch Kodak’s full interview above and catch up on all the lyrics to “No Flockin” on Genius now.
