The Story Behind How Kanye West Created The “Otis” Beat Is Epic

Lenny S. took to Instagram to give us an inside look at how Kanye West orchestrated the “Otis” beat off Watch The Throne. The signature track celebrated its five year anniversary yesterday (July 20).

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The A&R specialist vividly recalls the time when Yeezy had a flight to catch and the creative genius came up with the idea for the beat minutes before leaving.

“We were in the Mercer Hotel, NYC, where a lot of the album was made. The day or rather session for that day was coming to an end. Kanye had to catch a flight if I’m not mistaken. We were almost towards the end of the album and he was telling everyone in the room that as soon as he returns, he wanted to fu*k with this Otis Redding sample idea he had.”

Check out the original Otis Redding song that was sampled below.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=TXmLjbTBcdU

“He then approached the MPC and Keyboard and plays it. Everyone in the room does the ugly face like when you hear some dope sh*t or see the sickest slam dunk at a contest. Lol. He then begins to chop the sample lil by lil (But fast) and actually starts creating the track.”

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As the sample is being chopped, the Roc Nation executive snaps photo after photo before Ye leaves the Mercer Hotel about 15 or 20 minutes later. Check out the Instagram post below to see Kanye in action delivering the beat known as “Otis.” Hopefully there are more stories like this to come.

Five years ago today, the song “Otis” was released. It’s one of my favorite songs, tracks and Lyrics from the classic Album, Watch The Throne by Jay Z & Kanye West. This record stands out to me cause I vividly remember the day of its inception. We were in the Mercer Hotel, NYC, where a lot of the album was made. The day or rather session for that day was coming to an end. Kanye had to catch a flight if I’m not mistaken. We were almost towards the end of the album and he was telling everyone in the room that as soon as he returns, he wanted to fuck with this Otis Redding sample idea he had. As he was being reminded that he had to leave to catch his flight, he sort of brushed that off and was like, fuck it, let me just play y’all a piece of the song so you could see how dope it is. He then approached the MPC and Keyboard and plays it. Everyone in the room does the ugly face like when you hear some dope shit or see the sickest slam dunk at a contest. Lol. He then begins to chop the sample lil by lil (But fast) and actually starts creating the track. Ye being one of my favorite producers, I’m literally hype as Fuck and in awe. I begin to snap the Canon cam like an Uzi. Lol. This is 1 of the pictures captured here of course. 15 or 20min later before he runs off to catch his flight, he creates the phenomenal track known to us as “OTIS”. #Otis #WatchTheThrone #WTT #RocNation #GoodMusic #DefJam #JayZ #KanyeWest #RocafellaRecords

A photo posted by Lenny S. (@kodaklens) on Jul 20, 2016 at 4:00pm PDT