How Kendrick Lamar brought a freestyler into the spotlight with ‘Squabble Up’
Kendrick Lamar released his surprise album GNX in November. It featured a song called ‘Squabble Up’, which debuted at number one on the Hot 100 and earned him his fifth top-spot single. However, the Compton rapper likely wouldn’t have experienced the same success without the sample on the record.
Produced by Kendrick, Sounwave, Jack Antonoff and Bridgeway, the track samples Debbie Deb’s 1984 freestyle hit ‘When I Hear Music’. The song pays homage to G-funk and hyphy, with the title nodding to LA slang, meaning to both fight and dance.
Deb took to X (formerly Twitter) after ‘Squabble Up’ was released, telling her followers, “I’m excited and honoured to be on Squabble Up! Thank you @kendricklamar for keeping Old Skool alive!” During an interview with RNB Philly, she opened up about hearing the song for the first time.
“It’s crazy, my son that lives in Philly called and told me, ‘Hey ma, the new Kendrick Lamar song just came out and you’re on it! You’re all over it!’ I’m like, ‘What do you mean?’ I played it and I was like, ‘That’s gonna go number one, that’s crazy. As soon as I heard it, it was like, he nailed it. He always nails it. He’s the bomb.”
Although she heard rumblings, Deb clarified that she didn’t know Kendrick had sampled her until the album dropped. “I did hear a while back something was happening, but I didn’t know with who or with what,” she said.
She continued: “They don’t really tell you nothing in the industry, it’s so crazy. But there was rumours, and I never believe the rumours, because usually, 90% of them, they’re not true. But I didn’t know who it was. And bam, I was nicely surprised and very flattered.”
Deb revealed she heard the rumours around four months before it came out. “It’s very overwhelming for me because I wasn’t expecting it,” she said. “I just love my little life in Florida, and I just do my little thing, and I do shows. But I live a very easy life – I was not expecting this whole turn-up to come up like this. I mean, my social media is blowing up. I’m embracing it, I’m ready for it. It’s long overdue for me, you know?”
Janet Jackson, the Black Eyed Peas, and Pitbull have all sampled and reworked her music over the years. However, she never received a payday from Jackson. “I am going to talk to a lawyer and just see if I have anything to stand on,” she told Genius. “I’m not asking for everything, but I feel I should be given something.”
Deb hopes that this time around, with Kendrick’s ‘Squabble Up‘, she’ll see some real financial gain. Despite her wishes, she’s not too bothered if the outcome doesn’t go her way.
“I think that would be so amazing if there was some justice for me,” she said. “Just so I can say, ‘Yeah, I feel good now about it.’ Because I always felt like I’ve had a raw deal with it, and I’ve come to accept it. We’ll see. I hope that [Kendrick] hears me.”
She added, “I hope that he realises what happened to me, and he’s got some heart about it, and he realises, ‘Damn, she was robbed. That bitch was robbed.’ And if he doesn’t, then that’s all good. I’m going to be fine either way.”