I originally asked him to get on "Rap N*****." He heard the record and he was like, "Yeah, 'Rap N*****' is strong Hussle, but listen to this." And he pulled up [1994's]
"Natural Born Killaz"with Ice Cube and Dre. And he said, "It don't sound like that though, bro." And this was the version [of "Rap N*****"] before the one we put out. It had less production. So I had my producer and we went to Puff's mansion he had just bought in L.A. — he had built a studio in the back.
He pressed play [again] on "Natural Born Killaz," like, "I hear what you're trying to do. It didn't sound like this sonically; it's not ready, bro." And I'm like, "Damn. You right!" We had it mixed and mastered, but the Dre and Ice Cube record was noticeably louder. So we went back to the studio and I hit [sound engineer] Mixed by Ali, like, "Bro we gotta mix it again, it's not loud enough." He's like, "No, it's gonna get louder in mastering." "No, bro." And I played "Natural Born Killaz" for everybody — the producers, the keyboard players. I said, "Listen to the energy of this record. We gotta make it this loud."
We went back in and reproduced it and added the synths to go throughout the whole song