What seems to be a previously-unreleased Andre 3000 verse has surfaced on Reddit.
On Thursday, a Reddit user posted a clip of an Instagram live broadcast from producer and former G.O.O.D. Music COO Che Pope. The video shows Pope playing what seems to be an unreleased verse from Andre 3000. The instrumental is from the track “Cops Shot the Kid,” from Nasir, Nas‘ 2018 album produced by Kanye West.
In the accompanying thread, users began speculating about what happened. Some believe the verse was unfinished, others believe Andre’s perfectionism played a part. “He wanted to put a verse,” one user commented, “but just couldn’t do one to his liking in time. All the final verses to the album were recorded in like the last 11 days.”
Kanye West really cut Andre 3000 from the OG version of Nas’ Cops Shot the Kid UNFORGIVABLE??? pic.twitter.com/NYrWj3uwpp
— King Wow (@wowthatshiphop) October 22, 2020
The track riffs on a line about police brutality from Slick Rick’s “Children’s Story,” and Andre sticks to the theme. “Bump killing cops,” he raps, “what if we kill cop kids? Make that nigga adopt a baby because we got his. Make that nigga a dot, on his head and pop it. Maybe they just forgot, refreshing game of pop quiz. Make a movie about cop kids in small boxes.” The video cuts out shortly afterwards.
The user also posted footage of Young Thug on the The Life of Pablo track “Freestyle 4.” West previously said the two recorded dozens of songs together.
Two months ago, Nas revealed he wanted a little more time to prepare the album, which was the fourth of five albums Kanye produced in what we now know as the Wyoming Sessions.
“We really did that album that week it was supposed to come out,” he said. “It just went crazy once we announced we were doing the album. I definitely wanted to work with him a lot more than we did. It’s a short album, we just didn’t get enough time. I wish we worked on it more, but certain things happen for reasons.”
The album peaked at number five on the Billboard charts, but it seems the project was far from complete upon its release.