Ezra Koenig explains his writing credit on Beyoncé’s ‘Lemonade’

"Songs become tweets, tweets become songs"

Over the weekend, Beyonce dropped her latest album ‘Lemonade’. The album features many collaborators, including Jack White, Vampire Weekend‘s Ezra Koenig, The Weeknd, Kendrick Lamar, Father John Misty.

Whilst some writing credits are easy to understand, there’s been some confusion surrounding Ezra Koenig’s involvement. Today, he took to twitter to set the record straight.

Writing on Twitter, he explained that the credit all goes back to a tweet he sent in 2011. Stating the Yeah Yeah Yeahs released ‘Maps’ in 2003, he then said, “i think “what if it was ‘hold up’ instead of ‘wait’?” & tweet a tweet”

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“i write a hook based on the maps tweet, adding new lines/melodies. originally it was “there’s no other God above you, what a wicked way to treat the man who loves you.” i figured it was going to be a vampire weekend song, but was easily convinced it could be better/go to a new place as a beyonce song.”

Continuing that Beyoncé “100% made it her own,” Koenig also states that he “made sure that [the Yeah Yeah Yeahs] were credited.”

The packed guest-list on the album includes Kendrick Lamar on ‘Freedom’, James Blake on ‘Forward’, The Weeknd on ‘6 Inch’ (which samples Animal Collective‘s ‘My Girls’) and Jack White on ‘Don’t Hurt Yourself’. The rock connection on the album runs deep with Father John Misty and Vampire Weeknd’s Ezra Koenig listed as writers on ‘Hold Up’, which samples Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ song ‘Maps’.

Meanwhile Outkast’s ‘SpottieOttieDopaliscious’ is sampled on ‘All Night’. Led Zeppelin song ‘When The Levee Breaks’ is sampled on Jack White-featuring sampled ‘Don’t Hurt Yourself’.

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Released today (April 25) on iTunes, ‘Lemonade’ marks Beyoncé’s fifth solo album.

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