Red Bull's 20 Before 15 series comes to and end with a final song from an unlikely crew made up of breakout star iLOVEMAKONNEN, Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig, and underground Queens rapper Despot. The collaboration, recorded at Red Bull Sounds Studios in New York, is a remix of Makonnen's track "Down 4 So Long," which was released as a one-off earlier this year.
The song sees Makonnen talking about his friend's death and how his life has been since.
"I've been down for song long / And I've been keeping it too real / So I'ma say what I want / And I don't care how you feel / No I don't care how you feel," he sings on the hook.
The unexpected highlight of the track, however, is Koenig's verse. He adopts a bit of Makonnen's flow, name-checks his fellow collaborators, says he thinks, "Americans are wack," recalls Mary-Kate Olsen calling out his Ray Bans for being off-brand, and makes cultural references from 2014.
"Summer twenty-fourteen / Schmoney dancing with some goth teens / Motherf**kers leaking nudes / Why they got to be so rude? / I lost my samurai / And I feel like a f**king ronin / And now my only friends / Are Despot and Makonnen," Koenig raps.
Later, Despot references a line from Makonnen's breakout hit "Tuesday" and talks about doing whatever he needs to for money, his lack of sleep, and more.
For the past three weeks Red Bull asked artists that it had worked with over the year to share some new music. Each track was only made available for a limited 1,000 downloads. All the downloads for "Down 4 So Long" are now gone, but you can stream it below.
Previous artists featured on the project include Inky, Mala, Mumdance, Ossie, Jessie Ware, New Beat Fund, Bomba Estereo, Nadastrom, The Wanton Bishops, Skrillex, D'Angelo, The Vanguard, Javiera Mena, Five Knives, Elliphant, Mø,Louis Baker, Thibo Tazz, Yosi Horikawa, Jackson and his Computerband, Branko, Dengue Dengue Dengue, Lil Herb, Earl Sweatshirt, Compass, Sizarr, Tokimonsta and Iza.
Check out the "Down 4 So Long (Remix)" below, and let us know what you think in the comments section!
