Trae Tha Truth Explains How Star-Studded “I’m On 2.0″ Came To Life

"I'm On 2.0"

Trae Tha Truth had one of 2011's most impressive posse cuts, "I'm On," featuring Lupe Fiasco, Big Boi, Wiz Khalifa and Wale, on his album Street King last June. Last week, though, he took things a step further, and secured Big K.R.I.T., Jadakiss, J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar, B.o.B, Tyga, Gudda Gudda, Bun B and Mark Morrison for a mega follow up he called, "I'm On 2.0." The Houston native recently explained to XXLMag.com the process of putting the star-studded song together.

Last month, Trae got a call from Morrison, whose song "Return of the Mack" was sampled on "I'm On." The rapper feared some kind of lawsuit may be headed his way, but in actuality, the singer was a fan, and wanted to work together. "It started with me getting him to re-sing the hook," Trae explained to XXLMag.com. "But then I just started thinking, Man, if I’m gonna do that just to make it a little different, I might as well just go on and reach out to some of the homies."

At first, Trae thought the cut would only feature two or three other artists, but he ended up with nine. He simply reached out to friends and people he thought would sound good on the upbeat anthem. "I just took the feel for who I thought would sound good on the track," he continued.

"Me and Big K.R.I.T. was doing something [else together], and actually he was the first one to send a verse back," Trae said. "While I was in Miami, shooting [the video part for] Mark Morrison, me and Tyga bumped into each other, and I was telling him what I was doing, and he was like, Cool, send it to me, and he did his that night. When Tyga recorded his verse, I think Gudda walked in the studio, and Tyga texted me, Hey, Trae, can we hold a spot for Gudda? And Gudda my patna, so I ain’t trippin’, man. Kendrick Lamar was actually in Houston and he called me to come out and perform with him, so that made sense to get him on there. Jada, you know Jada my brother, so whatever looks I get, I always want Jada to get the same looks. I reached out to Bun. I was in the airport leaving Miami, and Cole just happened to call in and check on me, and it made sense to get him on there. When I left Miami, I was going out to do a cameo and some other stuff with B.o.B, and we still got a whole bunch of records that haven’t been released; it just made sense to get him on there, and he’s been getting me on stuff, too."

Surprisingly, considering the busy schedules of the heavyweights on the track, it took Trae less than two weeks to get all the verses back: "I hear people work on albums, and sometimes it takes months to get a verse back. I thought of a remix and got all the verses back in less than a week and three days."

The response was overwhelmingly positive, with the song title trending worldwide on Twitter shortly after it dropped. "When I put that record out, in less than ten minutes, worldwide, that record was trending," he recalled. "Think about it—I don’t trend shit [laughs]. It feels good when you hear people say, Hip-hop is alive; or you hear people say, I’ve never heard a posse cut with a whole bunch of artists that I actually like and everybody spitting a hard verse. Those are things to remember, man."

Trae also revealed that the "I'm On 2.0" video is almost finished, as the only people left to shoot their parts are Trae, Jadakiss, Bun B, and Gudda Gudda.

The raspy-voiced rhymer recently dropped his King of the Streets Freestyles, and now his ABN Renegades crew is getting ready to release the album Welcome to the Streets. The project, which will feature J. Cole, Twista, Jim Jones, Meek Mill, Freeway and more, is slated to hit stores March 27. —Adam Fleischer