Kaytranada Reveals He Turned Down Working With Beyoncé After Team Tried To Lowball Him

One of my favorite DJ-producers Kaytranada recently sat down with Vulture magazine, and inside the out musician (and one of the biggest forces you may not be aware of in the music industry) spilled some tea on a few A-list artists he turned down collaborating with.

Kaytra revealed that he turned down working with Beyoncé and Drake after the former's team tried lowballing him, and Drake lacked enthusiasm on Kaytra producing beats for Obviously/Nevermind.

“I was just minding my business and then my name was trending on Twitter,” says Kaytra as he sips from a cup of tea. “I think that finally made me realize, like, Oh, shit. I am that dude. You know?”

To be fair, the way he tells it, he was approached at a Coachella after-party in L.A. to make beats for Honestly, Nevermind, and though he says it would have been “an honor,” he later overheard that it fell through because his casual response — “Sure, hit me up” — lacked fawning enthusiasm. “Was I supposed to be like, ‘Oh my God, for real? Drake?’ I’m not like that,” he says.

He would later be the opening DJ for Beyoncé’s birthday show on the Renaissance tour at SoFi Stadium in L.A. last year (both are Virgos), but his crowd-pleasing remix of “Cuff It” never made it to most streaming platforms. Beyoncé’s team, he says, offered to pay him next to nothing for the remix — less money, he says, than what much smaller artists have paid — and wanted to retain all the rights to the song, too. “Sometimes people don’t see your worth and how important you are,” he says. He was comfortable enough saying “no”: “I know what I mean to people.”

Quiet as it's kept Drake's attempt at dabbling in the house music genre felt uninspired and unfinished, so I believe him when he says Drake lacked enthusiasm.

As for Beyoncé’, yout A-listers better stop playing in these producer's faces. If Kaytranada did all the work on a remix to one of the biggest songs off Renaissance, why does Bey have to get a huge piece of the pie while he gets crumbs. We've heard far too many stories on how she does this not only to producers, but to the people that write her songs as well.

You can read the full article here.