The song Tyler, The Creator originally made for Snoop Dogg: “I need that. That’s hard”
Tyler, The Creator released his second album, Goblin, on XL Recordings in 2011 while he was still in the early stages of his career. One of the songs on the album, ‘She’, served as a collaboration with fellow Odd Future member Frank Ocean, but it was actually made for Snoop Dogg.
During a performance at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles in 2022, Tyler revealed he put together the beat for the West Coast legend but didn’t have the contacts to slide it his way. Unfortunately, this meant Tyler was left without a hope of getting his music across to Snoop: “I originally made this beat for Snoop Dogg but I had no way to get it to him, so me and my big homie did this song, and it goes like this,” he told his fans on stage.
Although Tyler wasn’t able to get ‘She’ to him before it was included on the album, the track was actually played to Snoop during an interview with SMUG TV just months after it dropped. He liked it so much that he wanted the song for himself, but it was all too late.
“I like that,” Snoop said. “I need that. That’s hard. That’s the one that be eating the cockroach? Yeah, he crazy. That muthafucka crazy. He gave me some music. He from the Wild Wild West? I’m definitely fucking with him.”
Tyler once admitted that he disliked Goblin, which included big singles like ‘Yonkers’ and ‘Sandwitches’. However, ‘She’ remained one of his favourites from the project.
“When I made Odd Future, I was onto something,” he told GQ. “Just the energy that it brought in and the people that came around. We have our Internets now, we have our Earls, we have our Franks, we have our me’s, and I just think that’s really cool. I was just thinking about that the other day. I was listening to some old stuff and I was like: That’s cool.”
He added, “Some of it has aged well. Some of it. I think Goblin is horrible. I think Bastard is cool. The only songs I would keep from Goblin are ‘Yonkers’, ‘She’, ‘Nightmare’, ‘Tron Cat’, ‘Fish’, ‘Analog’, and ‘AU79’.”
On the self-produced ‘She’, Tyler raps, “Golden rubbers in these denim pockets/ On my waist, there’s a black Glock/New girl moved on the block/ She been plottin’ on my brown cock/ Last night, I slept over hers/ During sex, I overheard/ A sword sliced the air, I pulled out the na-na/ Rolled off the bed, then shot back, pow-pow.”
The song appeared as the fourth track on the album and served as one of two Frank collaborations, with ‘Window’ also featuring the singer. Now eight albums into his career and one of the biggest rappers in the world, it’s fair to say that Tyler wouldn’t have any trouble getting Snoop on a song if he wanted to collaborate in the future. But, for now, the closest we will come to seeing the two rappers collaborate on a project is ‘She’.