Numbers on the Boards Lyrics

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About

Genius Annotation

“Numbers on the Boards” was the second single from My Name Is My Name. This intense, wordplay-dense track is a fan-favorite from MNIMN. Push says he wanted it to sound like a “street record.” Rolling Stone rated the single 4 out of 5 stars.

This song was for the fans, Push says, “I wanted it to sound like a mixtape—just that un-compromised rap feel. It’s what that [rap] purist loves. I think they spoke out loud when I dropped it. It’s a monster.”

Pusha told MTV News that Kanye West, who produced the song, dropped it spontaneously on May 10th, without his label’s permission:

Ye just called me and said, “Man, I’m gonna send you this record. And I called him back and told him it was crazy. He told me, "I'mma put it out in 15 minutes.” I asked him, “Did you call the label?” Because we leak records all the time, we lie, we say we don’t know how it happened, we got hacked, and it’s always such a big issue. So I asked if he called them and Kanye said, “No, I didn’t call them and I’m putting it out in 15 minutes.” So, it dropped, man.

The minimalistic cover art was designed by Kanye during the video shoot for the music video:

That was the beginning of the minimal wave that we got on. We thought that song was so dynamic, a song where we had to implement these design ideas.

There was the video going around when we put the song out, I was going crazy and talking to Ye on the phone when I first heard the final version of [“Numbers on the Boards”]. I was screaming at the top of my lungs. He asked me what I was gonna wear when we shot the video, and I screamed at him, “This is about drugs and black T-shirts! This is not about fashion.” That turned into another conversation—Then what’s the artwork? He was like, “there’s no artwork.” That was the extreme theme, and our first way of implementing what we were discussing about the stark and minimal, art where the primary focus is on the music.

—Pusha T, Interview with The Fader

“Who I Am” was released with a similar album cover that reads, “No Artwork 2.”, while a “No Artwork 3” would come along with Kanye West’s 2016 posse cut “Champions.”

Q&A

Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning

What have the artists said about this song?
Genius Answer

From Pusha’s Urban Legends interview, October 2018:

“To me, Cannon is a special individual. Cannon has young sensibilities but he’s also a hip hop purist. He sent me that and knew it was refreshing but still sounds like the essence; it sounds so industrial…like Nine Inch Nails. ‘Ye always wants to hear all the beats…I remember him hearing this and saying, ‘That’s special. You do that now. Like right now.' I already knew it was fire. I think [88 Keys] provided the reoccurring 'Yeah' sample. The second verse was [originally] the first verse. The song originally started with the [Jay-Z 'Rhyme No More’] sample. This was all manipulated after I gave ‘Ye the record. He was like, the impact is, ‘I’m so flossy/Bitch get off me.' I’m like, 'No, the song goes like this…' And he’s like, 'You have to get out of that mindset of it being so formulaic.' But Cannon nailed it. We talk all the time. He’ll call me like, 'I got some shit that only you’ll rap on.’”

Translations
Genius Answer
Credits
Produced By
Directed By
Performance Rights
Recording Engineer
Mixing Engineer
Additional Production
Recorded At
Studio Seine, Paris And Don Cannon At Mean Streets, Atlanta, GA
Release Date
May 10, 2013
Numbers on the Boards Interpolations
View Numbers on the Boards samples
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