THE MAKING OF THE “IN THE MORNING” BEAT:
Leslie “L” Merceron: I remember the exact day we made that beat: September 13, 2007. [Laughs] The exact day. At the time, I had my production setup at my house and it was 3:30 or 4 o’clock in the morning and I couldn’t sleep. So I got up and started messing around and, funny enough, made a song that ended up being called “In The Morning.”
Xavier “X” Smith: I remember the call and everything. He called me and said, ‘Yo, I got this hot joint. It’s different and it’s not like everything else on the radio right now.’
Leslie “L” Merceron: Yeah, so then we got into the studio the next day and finished it off together. That’s how we work.
Xavier “X” Smith: From there, I had met J. Cole through a friend in New York. Cole produces a lot of his own stuff but he heard our music and he was very interested in it. So he was going through some beats that we had submitted to him and he stopped at “In The Morning” and thought it was great. He was mesmerized by the uniqueness of it. He started writing to it and gave us a call later like, “I’m feeling the record. I’m going to move forward with it.” But you have to realize, that was all the way back in 2007. So the original “In The Morning,” he put it on a sampler called The Warm Up to the Warm Up.
Leslie “L” Merceron: Yeah, that beat has been around for awhile now.
Xavier “X” Smith: As far as Drake getting involved, I remember the day so clear. J. Cole called me about a month or two ago and told me the news about Drake hearing the record and loving it and implying that he’d like to do the record over together.
Leslie “L” Merceron: When he told us Drake was interested in the record, we were stunned. So, we went back, added some live instrumentation to the record and that’s what added on to the original version. But the song is basically the same joint. J. Cole’s first verse is the same but the second one is definitely different and then obviously there’s a Drake verse on there now.
Xavier “X” Smith: And people have loved it. A lot of work has come in as a result of Drake showing interest in the song. [Laughs] A lot! Stay tuned.
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