No ‘bad blood’, some great chemistry here

Roisin O’Connor

Kendrick Lamar has revealed what it was like working with Taylor Swift on the track Bad Blood. Lamar contributed a guest verse to the pop artist’s single from 1989 and spoke about it with Howard Stern on the Sirius XM show.

“You gotta have a great business mind and integrity and a great team,” Lamar said, referring to how he decides who to collaborate with.

“The number one thing we talk about is how does the music sound, how far... in the pop world is the sound. So the first thing is, let's hear the music because the music is going to dictate the idea and the concept of where we can take this idea.”

Of Bad Blood, he explained: “We [he and Swift] were both in LA so I came to her studio session. She had the music up and I started writing and jumped in the booth and we laid it down.

“With this particular record, it was me just vibing and catching her lyrics,” he added. “I didn't want to get in her head too crazy. I just wanted to have my own inspiration and see where it took it... Fortunately the vibe was right and it didn’t take too many takes and we were really locked in on the chemistry and we really felt what was going on.”

Lamar and Swift were both recently nominated for Grammy Awards at the 2018 event. Lamar is one of the most nominated artists of the year, with seven nods including for Record of the Year (Humble) and Album of the Year for DAMN.

While Swift’s most recent album reputation was not eligible for the 2018 awards, she did receive two nominations — for the song Better Man, which she wrote for the country band Big Little Town, and for I Don’t Wanna Live Forever ft. ZAYN, which featured on the soundtrack for Fifty Shades Darker.

— The Independent