Song Exploder - Fousheé

Song Exploder

Fousheé - Deep End

Episode 213

Hrishikesh: You’re listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and

piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. My name is Hrishikesh

Hirway.

Hrishikesh: This episode contains explicit language.

(“Deep End” by FOUSHEÉ)

Hrishikesh: The story of how the song “Deep End” came into existence and became a hit is

kind of wild. One person who really didn’t see it coming is the person who

created it, Fousheé. She’s a singer and songwriter from New Jersey. You might

have seen her competing on The Voice in 2018. Soon after that, she got asked

to make a pack of vocal samples for the music platform Splice, where users can

download samples and include them in their own songs, royalty-free. Coming

up, Fousheé tells the story of what happened with one of those samples, and

how that led to her making “Deep End.” “Deep End” has now been streamed

over 385 million times. Fousheé became the ﬁrst Black female artist to hit the

Top 10 Alternative Chart in over 30 years. Here’s Fousheé breaking down the

twists and turns that went into making “Deep End.”

(“Deep End” by FOUSHEÉ)

Fousheé: My name is Fousheé.

(Music fades)

Fousheé: When I got oﬀered to do the sample pack, it was right after I got done shooting

The Voice. I was just eliminated from The Voice and I was like, “Fuck [laughter].

What now?” And I was so heartbroken, but really, that ended up being for the

better. I met someone from Splice, the sample pack company, and he asked me

to do a pack of like 250 samples. He’s like, “If you have extra vocals on your

computer, you know, anything unused,” and I was like, “Okay, this is cool like I

can make money, and just release this thing, it's like a residual income.” Usually,

a sample pack is “Ooh’s,” “Ah’s,” you know, maybe a word or two. There’s not

hooks on there but I thought, you know like, “What do producers need? They

need hooks so, you know, I'm going to make [laughter] a dope ass pack from

scratch.”

(Vocals: “I been trying not to go oﬀ the deep end / I don’t think you wanna give me a reason / I

been trying not to go oﬀ the deep end / I don’t think you wanna give me, me”)

Fousheé: It was like diﬀerent variations of vocal samples. So the next one will be [sung],

“I've been trying not to go oﬀ the deep end / I don't think you wanna give me a

reason,” and then I did some [sung] “ooh’s,” you know, probably a low and that

would be like 6 or 7 samples. Writing is a very intimate thing but when I came up

with those lines, I wasn't thinking about anything, I was trying not to overthink it,

and I was just trying to have fun with it. And once the pack came out, I just

walked away,

(Piano)

Fousheé: and did my own thing. My job here is done.

(Piano ends)

Fousheé: Once people use the pack, they don't have to credit the artist because typically

people don't make hooks. It was just a diﬀerent scenario, it backﬁred on me

[laughter]. One of my friends sent me a YouTube link and she’s like, “Is this

you?”

(“Deep End Freestyle” by SLEEPY HALLOW ft. FOUSHEÉ)

Fousheé: And I clicked it and it was the “Deep End Freestyle” by Sleepy Hallow.

(“Deep End Freestyle” by SLEEPY HALLOW ft. FOUSHEÉ)

(Music ends)

Fousheé: I think a month had passed and it was like at a million something views. I didn't

really understand what was going on until I saw [laughter] the YouTube video

and like read the comments. The way that they use it kind of highlighted the

vocals. People were like, “Where can they ﬁnd the person singing the sample?”

A lot of people were like, “I'm here for the girl singing.” They were kind of

answering the questions on their own, and like tracing back to diﬀerent versions

of people using the sample and thinking those were the original. [laughter]

Someone was like, “Hi, I made the original. This is the original I have it right

here.” It was like just impossible to cut through all this chatter because so many

people were giving wrong information. So, after a lot of peer pressure from my

family, I made that TikTok video just saying it was me.

(TikTok video audio)

Hrishikesh: In the TikTok video, Fousheé is playing guitar and singing, and there’s text over it

that reads: “The irony of this is I'm actually the original singer in this song but no

one knows or believes me and it's legit making me go oﬀ the DEEP END.”

(TikTok video audio fades)

Fousheé: I posted it. I went to sleep. I woke up and it went viral while I was sleeping.

Hrishikesh: Over 6 million views.

Fousheé: People were surprised, and I couldn’t have gotten credit without them, they

caused a lot of commotion [laughter]. And they were like, “Make your own

version, we'll support it.” So I just gave it a try. I saw it as a challenge to bring

myself into the song while like still incorporating all these other elements.

(Guitar)

Fousheé: I didn't want to start it as somber and slow as the sample was. So I had my

electric guitar. Okay, I'm just going to do like some driving strums.

(Vocals join: “I been trying not to go oﬀ the deep end / I don’t think you wanna give me a

reason / I been trying not to go oﬀ the deep end / I don’t think you wanna give, give me”)

Fousheé: I listened and like sat with those original hook lyrics to see how that applies in

my life. And it was very ﬁtting anyway so it wasn't that hard. I was very angry, I

was stressed out, it was like right in the beginning of quarantine, George Floyd

was just killed. I did feel like I was going oﬀ the deep end, so I just used it as my

diary and vented really.

(Vocals with piano: “Had to come and ﬂip the script / Had a big bone to pick / Got the short

end of sticks, so we made a ﬁre with it”)

Fousheé: So that's like my thesis statement. I'm like, “Okay, why am I here?” I had a bone

to pick. I got the short end of the stick for too long. And I decided to do things

my way and make a ﬁre with it instead of accepting this little bone.” Not only is it

a familiar feeling, just like being a woman in the industry, being a black woman

in the industry, there's so many experiences that we have, we're like constantly

ﬁghting for our worth, for opportunities, for acknowledgement. But this story

was about following through and demanding your worth. So it was a diﬀerent

energy, like less of the victim, more of the victor. It's more of a success story.

(Vocals, guitar, and beat: “Shawty gon’ get that paper / Shawty tongue rip like razor / Shawty

got wit, got ﬂavor / Pardon my tits and make-up, uh, uh”)

(Guitar with beat)

Fousheé: I wanted it to be like danceable, motivating, like a happy anger.

(Beat)

Fousheé: I thought of a drum pattern and I did the little [mimics beat],

(Beat)

Fousheé: and I found the sound, the little water drop.

(Water drop sound, piano, and beat)

Fousheé: And I sent it to Itai Shapira, he's a producer. And I wanted diﬀerent drums, but

he was like, “This sounds great, let's keep it.” I was like, “No!” And I was like,

“Okay, fuck it. I'm already used to it [laughter].”

(Synth)

Fousheé: Itai added the synth elements too and like those cool sounds.

(Synth)

Fousheé: You know, I try to add a little weirdness in my songs so when he added that I

was like, “That’s perfect.”

(Synth ends)

Fousheé: A lot of my inspiration comes from rap. Secretly like in my head, you know, I’m

really like, “Okay, I'm a rapper, in my head [laughter]”. But I thought like I didn’t

have the content, the type of perspective that I would hear other rappers had.

And then, there just came a time where I just didn't care.

(Synth)

Fousheé: And I was like, “I need people to know that this is a part of me.”

(Vocals, piano, synth, and water drop sound: “give, give me / Please proceed to light this bitch

up / Life ain’t fair, you ﬁght for your cut / Think I spy your eye on my bucks / Great, look, now

the lion woke up / You eying my shit, inquiring shit / Live for the minor event, I ﬁnally slip / Built

on the bodies of men, nobody winning / Contain what I’m bottling in just beneﬁts them”)

(Vocals: “Shawty gon’ get that paper / Shawty tongue rip like razor / Shawty got wit, got

ﬂavor”)

Fousheé: We ﬁnished the song. But I didn't know if people will like it because they already

fell in love with the other version. But I knew that I was proud of it. So love it or

hate it, this is me.

(Piano)

Fousheé: I came, and I got my victory, I got my things. It's just for me to get what I

deserve. And in the process, I was an example for other people.

(Water drop sound and guitar join)

Fousheé: For black women and, you know, whoever I had went through

(Synth joins)

Fousheé: anything similar. Or just feeling cheated in any way or settling for less than their

worth.

(Beat joins)

Fousheé: It's like the underdog moment, come on. I love those moments.

(Beat)

(Beat ends)

Hrishikesh: And now, here’s “Deep End,” by Fousheé, in its entirety.

(“Deep End” by FOUSHEÉ)

Hrishikesh: To learn more, visit songexploder.net/fousheé. You’ll ﬁnd links to buy or stream

“Deep End,” and you can watch the music video.

This episode was made by me with editing help from Teeny Lieberson and

Casey Deal. Artwork by Carlos Lerma, and music clearance by Kathleen Smith.

Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia, from PRX, a network of

independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more

about our shows at radiotopia.fm. You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram

@HrishiHirway. And you can follow the show @SongExploder. You can also get a

Song Exploder t-shirt at songexploder.net/shirt. I’m Hrishikesh Hirway. Thanks

for listening.