Last week, Bryson Tiller released his long-awaited, third studio album, Anniversary. The project included just one impressive guest — Drake — on the emerging fan-favorite, “Outta Time.” Appearing on Genius’ “For the Record” series this week, Tiller explained that the mega-collaboration was originally meant to land on his forthcoming project, Serenity.
“I was like, ‘Wow, you sound amazing on this,’” Tiller reflected after sending Drake the track. He admitted to “just sitting on [the song] for a while,” before his manager Neil Dominique pushed him to release the collaboration on Anniversary.
“[Dominique] was like, ‘Man, that sh*t’s hard. I ain’t gonna lie. I don’t feel like sh*t would ever come out without you,’” he recalled.
“… He left the studio and for the first time, I went in there and knocked it out … I was like, ‘Yo, can I use it on my album?’ [Drake] was like, ‘Yeah. Let’s go. Let’s go. I’m hype.’ So, that’s how that happened.”
Prior to the new collaboration, Tiller said he and Drake had been sending “each other ideas” for years. The Louisville, Kentucky native revealed he had also planned for Drake to appear on his 2015 debut album Trapsoul, with Drizzy eying project cuts “Don’t” and “The Sequence.”
“We didn’t get to make that happen, obviously, but this is dope to come back five years later—full circle—and do it,” he said.
Additionally, Tiller was supposed to feature on Drake’s More Life, but said a “terrible mental headspace” prevented him from guesting on the project.
“I really couldn’t deliver the proper Bryson Tiller verse for a Drake album… it just wasn’t there at all,” he explained. “So I ended up not getting on the project. Anyway, we still kept in contact over the years.”
Watch Tiller’s full interview below.