Although the road to “Hurricane” was one less traveled, Sam Barsh enjoyed the journey.
Long before Kanye West decided to post up at Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta to finish his latest album DONDA, he previewed a track that presumed to be the lead single for Yandhi – a scrapped album. This was in 2018 when the track was titled, “80 degrees.”
The foundation of the track derived from a 3-hour jam session at Archwood Music Studio featuring DJ Khalil, Dan Seeff, Josh Mease, and Sam Barsh.
Barsh says that while it took 3 years to release it was certainly worth the wait.
During Ye’s first DONDA listening session in Atlanta, he was told by a friend that “Hurricane” was one of the tracks that were played.
“A friend of mine comes to me and says ‘yo I heard your joint on the Kanye live stream and it sounded dope,’” Barsh explains.
As DONDA’s release grew closer, Barsh says the anticipation paired with anxiety shot through the roof.
“With these things, you just never know until the actual release and it’s uploaded on DSPs,” said the Grammy-nominated producer. “And it’s Kanye West at that.”
The Illinois native says he’s been able to connect with a number of DONDA collaborators that he did not know prior to the album.
“I’ve been a full-time musician for the past 20 years,” he says. “In the songwriting and production side of things, it took me a while to do stuff of quality. I knew my stuff was trash when I started.”
He continued saying “a lot has to go your way” for something of this magnitude to occur.
“I feel like a perfect storm of things collided in order for the record as a whole to happen.”
Barsh has worked and performed with a number of legendary artists including Stevie Wonder, Babyface, Boyz II Men, and Bruno Mars to name a few.
“Hurricane” features Lil Baby and The Weeknd. Back in 2020, Ye sent a tweet expressing his desire to work with the Quality Control Music rapper. He even called Baby his “favorite rapper.”
In an interview with GQ, earlier this year, The Weeknd expressed his desire to work with Yeezy. It was not long after before Ye posted his call log that included calls from and to The Weeknd. Shortly after the After Hours crooner was a DONDA featured artist.
