Chike has revealed that Kendrick Lamar took a hands-on role in shaping his new album, personally intervening to move a key record from the back of the tracklist to track three.
The Nigerian-American singer said he had originally placed a song called “God’s Favorite” toward the end of the project.
When he sent the album to Kendrick for review, the response was immediate and direct. God’s favorite in the back?” Chike recalled Kendrick saying. “It’s ratchet like ignorant. Nothing about nothing. Just belligerent. He like it’s in the back? Nah, we got to change that.”
From there, Kendrick made the call himself. “That pushed that up to track three,” Chike said. He added that Kendrick’s reasoning was clear: “They going to want this from you for sure.”
The intervention speaks to the level of trust and creative authority Kendrick brought to the project. Chike acknowledged that the move made sense in hindsight, even if his own instinct had been to bury the record.
Artists, he noted, can sometimes be too close to their own work to see it clearly, describing a feeling of having moved past a certain sound before Kendrick pushed him to reconsider its placement.
The influence did not stop with Kendrick. Chike confirmed that renowned mixing engineer Mixed by Ali handled the entire album.
Ali, who is closely associated with Kendrick’s catalog, also championed “God’s Favorite” from the start. “Bro, you got to put this on here,” Chike recalled Ali telling him.
The combination of Kendrick’s executive vision and Ali’s technical work gives the project a foundation that connects it directly to some of the most acclaimed music in recent memory.
Chike confirmed twice that Ali mixed the whole album, making clear this was not a partial contribution but a full commitment to the project.
Chike did not offer a release date or additional album details, but the picture he painted is one of a record shaped by serious creative collaboration at the highest level of the industry.
