Sunday Music: These "Suede" Stories From Anderson .Paak Are So Cool

Anderson .Paak, before you knew who he was, before you knew how to pronounce “.Paak” (which was on purpose?! what a genius marketing move I never even questioned), was making songs with his friends and floating them around on SoundCloud and at shows.

One of those songs caught the attention of Knxwledge (yes, pronounced “knowledge” but - marketing), who was signed to legendary indie hip hop label, Stones Throw Records.

Being early in the “I can stream all this new music from my phone?!” era (2015ish), I was excitedly checking out new Stones Throw artists because I didn’t have to pay $10 a pop in the iTunes store anymore (sorry artists) and I came across this group, NxWorries, and immediately fell in love with “Suede.”

It was Dilla and Madlib energy rolled up. It had a sing-songy vocal that - Speech? But cooler than Speech (Arrested Development) in more of a pimped-out yes lawd style (press play, you’ll get it)? It was modern Stones Throw in the coolest ways.

And, THE DRUMS.

I start googling and find out there’s this guy, Anderson .Paak, who I have no idea how to pronounce his name, but he’s got an album coming out, and he just did a bunch of drum and other work on the mid-2015 Dr. Dre album, Compton, which I checked out but had some mixed feelings on.

All I knew was, this NxWorries thing was cool, .Paak had gospel drumming roots (always respect that), and once Malibu and the rest of the records started coming out, I was on board with clocking his career.

What I didn’t know, until the (August 2025) Drink Champs episode with .Paak, is that “Suede” was the song that got him in front of Dre in the first place. That was a WTF moment to hear him tell. Not because I want to think I have half the ear of Dr Dre in spotting a cool song, but also, I have at least half that ear, right?!

The story goes, .Paak is working with some producers writing with Dre, they want to play “Suede” for Dre, but .Paak has cold feet about it. He wanted to make a new song to share with him. This one didn’t feel right, but his friends told him, “No, f*** that. We’re bringing them in here.”

You already know, or at least, you already can imagine the pressure of looking at Dre press play to take in something you’ve poured some heart and soul into that you already don’t think is worthy.

.Paak said, "We was like, 'What the f*** was that?' It was one of those. Anytime you get the two thumbs up - you did something crazy, right? And he just wouldn't stop playing it. And it was just like, wow. And he just cranked it up." 3 or 4 times played start to finish was all it took from there. Dre said “Let’s do something new,” meaning TOGETHER, and they started working that night.

I hear the song and I get it.

The song begs you to find out what else is going on there. It can’t be a one off or a mistake, or at least you definitely don’t want it to be once you start dissecting it. Which is the most compelling part here, learning that “Suede” became the jump off for a whole business foundation for .Paak, and the beginning of a very different kind of artist-label relationship.

More stories though, that I had no idea, are in this interview because they also gave me questions back then (that I still had now).

For starters, how’d .Paak get to do an indie record with the Dre / major label stuff happening at the same time? What were the tradeoffs here? In music, once there’s a major label involved, somebody usually owns everything, and .Paak was seemingly avoiding this. I have a business-oriented brain on top of my arts-oriented heart. Hearing .Paak break it down in the interview was something I’ve long wondered about.

Dr Dre was - almost shockingly - artist friendly in how .Paak tells the story. Dre signed .Paak to his label, Aftermath, but then let him release his debut, Malibu, independently. He’d let him keep certain masters (re: “rights”) to songs as they did other work together. These are all $$$ opportunities, this behavior isn’t normal.

And, the NxWorries project, it got done with Stones Throw Records, and no Dre-strings attached. All love. All respect.

I don’t think we consider how many options there are, if we want to be smart about them. Anderson .Paak’s smile has always made me think - something else is up here. But, now I know. And I respect the hell out of it. Run “Suede” back 3-4 times with me this morning.

The live version of “Suede” at the end of this too, I mean, COME ON. The request and, “I thought this was a more… cultured… like, mature… so ya’ll like being called bitches over here?! Cool.” That has to be one of my top 10 Tiny Desk moments.