After years of delays, Playboi Carti’s self-titled debut mixtape finally dropped on Friday. It features six beats by South Carolina native PierreBourne—who has also worked with Lil Yachty, Young Nudy, and UnoTheActivist—including the tape’s most popular track, “wokeuplikethis*” featuring Lil Uzi Vert.
In a recent interview with XXL, PierreBourne explained the unconventional environment in which the song’s beat came together:
I think I made it in my Uber, on my computer. I plug up my AUX to my computer and just cook up. Just like if I were in the studio. I don’t know how everyone else is when they make beats, but I’ve just been doing that shit so much, it doesn’t matter where I am. As long as I can hear what’s going on, I’m good. I know I’ll probably take it to a studio later and tweak it, but the idea is done… I Uber everywhere in Atlanta because I got to go to multiple studios and shit, so it’s the easiest way.
PierreBourne uses both Ableton and Fruity Loops to produce; he noted that Carti and Uzi had hopped on the “wokeuplikethis*” beat before he even got the chance to meet them. He had originally given the beat to Sailing Team rapper K$upreme, who showed it to Carti:
I couldn’t figure out where Carti was at, that shit is already on the internet. The clip of him in the car was just going viral. So I’m looking like, ‘Damn, I wish they would put 'produced by Pierre’ or something.‘ Like, yo, that shit’s crazy. That’s my beat! And then maybe two days later, I seen Lil Uzi on Snapchat playing the song. So I didn’t think he was on [the song] yet. Then that’s when Carti was like, 'Yeah, we got Lil Uzi on it.’
Aside from “wokeuplikethis*,” PierreBourne has five more songs on Carti’s tape. This includes the buzzing track “Magnolia,” which has already racked up half a million Spotify streams and 50,000 Genius pageviews in the few days since its release.
You can read the whole interview here and check out all the lyrics to Playboi Carti and Lil Uzi Vert’s “wokeuplikethis*” on Genius now.
