Logic opens up on how he snagged Seth MacFarlane for new song

Anyone who’s watched Family Guy over the past 20 years will be well aware of creator Seth MacFarlane’s old school crooning capabilities. In the popular cartoon series, MacFarlane reveals his love for the jazz-pop era by inviting Frank Sinatra Jr to the show to sing alongside his character Brian Griffin. Outside of his comedy programmes, MacFarlane has released several Sinatra-style albums. In a new interview, Logic revealed how he got one of his idols, “Sinatra in the flesh,” to sing on his new song, ‘Self Medication’.

In a new feature for Variety, Logic sat down to chat with Seth MacFarlane after revealing his love for Family Guy. “[MacFarlane’s] shows were there for me when I’m in a crack house surrounded by drug dealers and killers. It made me smile in a world that made me cry a lot,” Logic said. 

“I don’t know if Family Guy being your only escape when your parents weren’t around is necessarily a good thing,” MacFarlane replied. “But I’m flattered nonetheless.”

The rapper has also long been a fan of Frank Sinatra and has even adopted the nickname “Young Sinatra” in the past. With a comedy taste and music taste in common, the pair naturally had a lot to talk about. “I am the happiest guy in the whole wide world,” said Logic, as he met up with his hero on a video call to discuss the ‘Self Medication’ collab. 

Early on, Logic discussed how the Family Guy creator has long been a part of his music, revealing how the collaboration came about. “Yeah, Seth, back in 2011, I did a song called ‘Stewie Griffin’. It was out and it was for free, and I used a skit from the show, and it was super fun,” he said. “It’s cool that you actually bring that up. But many years later — only last year — did I release a song called ‘The Orville’ that got this man’s [MacFarlane’s] attention, and then we kind of became homies. I referenced the main character, played by Seth, in the show. How did you hear about ‘The Orville’ being a song on my album, Seth?”

“One of the folks on production flagged it for me,” MacFarlane replied. “I think it was Wiz Khalifa was also on the track. Is that right?”

“Oh, whoa,” said Logic. “That was like 2019, four years ago. That was the first [attempt at doing the track; it now features Redman and Statik Selektah].”

MacFarlane continued: “That was the first time I heard about it, and I thought it was very cool. And then the second time around it was like, ‘All right, something’s going on here, so I should meet this guy’. Because Orville was kind of the underdog in the Fuzzy Door world. You know, Family Guy was the show, and American Dad to some degree, as well, were the shows that were getting all the attention, and Orville was a little bit of the middle child. So when it kept getting mentioned in your music, I was like, ‘OK, this guy gets it.'”

“Man, I love that,” Logic interjected. “That’s like Shatner recognising you. But yeah, I remember you had followed me, which I freaked out about, and I don’t freak out a lot. I screamed. I was like, ‘Seth McFarlane followed me. Oh my God. OK, I gotta DM him. But be cool, man.’ I said something along the lines of ‘Thank you for the love and the shout out,’ and he responded with kind words, just being like, ‘Of course, man, I’m digging the song, much-continued success.’ And then I was like, ‘Thanks dude. Let me know if you want to grab a drink sometime.’ Like, yeah, fucking right, this guy’s gonna want to hang out with me. Then he actually responded immediately, and he was like, ‘Send nudes.’ No, I’m just kidding. He was like, ‘Yeah, sure, our people can work it out.’

“Lo and behold, we’re sitting at dinner and we’re talking about film and TV, but a lot of it kept coming back to music, because I am just the biggest fan of this man. I have all his albums. I’m a bit of a fanatic. For real, his music speaks to me because Sinatra’s music spoke to me, and he’s incredibly talented at what he does. We’re talking about lost tapes of Sinatra and sheet music and all this cool, cool stuff. And I just offhandedly was like, ‘It’d be cool to do something sometime. Maybe I could sample a song of yours.’ And he’s like, ‘I don’t know what the fuck that means, but all right.'”

“I don’t like to press somebody out,” Logic continued. “Like if I meet somebody, a lot of people it’s about agenda, right? You know, what can you do for me? Because I’ve been there as well — you can tell when shit’s kind of phony. So I didn’t want to blow him up about music or collaborating because for me it wasn’t like, ‘Oh, I need this Seth McFarlane feature to blow up.’ It was just, I thought he was a really nice guy and I thought it’d be cool to make art together. So I didn’t press it. And then I randomly made this song, ‘Self-Medication.’ I’m in New York. It was literally three days before I had to turn the album in. I send the song to Seth, and I had written this [crooning] ‘…and today is the only day’ part. And I sent him that, and he heard it and I guess he liked it. You’d have to ask him. He’s on the song, though. That’s good.”

Listen to Seth MacFarlane and Logic’s collaboration on ‘Self Medication’ below.