Two different times Andy Mineo had to push back the release date for Neverland 2. In a video on Instagram, he explains he had to cut a song with Lecrae from the album. The song in question was “Been About It.”
Lecrae references things in the song that need clearance from the original song owners. One of those people is legendary producer Rick Rubin. The problem, Rubin is in Italy vacationing. The problems don’t end there. Mineo has already ordered 1000s of copies of the album that are now useless. He and Lecrae need to rerecord the song and reshoot the music video as well. Overall, it’s disastrous.
However, fortunately, they didn’t have to scrap the song. Lecrae just had to rewrite and rerecord some of his lines.
Rapzilla was given the project about a month in advance. We also had the lyrics for the original version of the song and we are going to compare the two.
In the version of “Been About It” that we have now, Lecrae’s verse opened with:
Ridin’ through the city in the place I dwell (We just)
Two young fellas in the ATL (We don’t)
The way it originally opened was:
Here’s a little story I’d like to tell
About two young fellas in the ATL
Now, why was this problematic? Well, we know that Rick Rubin had something to do with that song. Type in “Here’s a little story I’d like to tell” into Google and you get:
For those that don’t know, Rick Rubin was the legendary producer behind the Beastie Boys at Def Jam Records.
The song “Paul Revere” opens up with:
“Now here’s a little story I’ve got to tell / About three bad brothers you know so well”
So it’s not a direct grab, but it’s close enough to maybe cause problems or be cited as an interpolation of the track. With all that’s happening in the music industry with accusations of plagiarism, Olivia Rodrigo being the latest most notable one, it was safer to cut this line out.
One other line was cut from the song although it’s not as clear why. It could have been a stylistic thing or perhaps Lecrae felt it went better with the previous part.
The original says:
Then he let me off with a warning,
We was on our way
I said it’s all about playing that GTA
The new line is:
Then he let me off with a warning,
We was on our way
45 in the 50 ’til I hit the highway
The revision makes more sense with the scenario of the song.
Our initial thought of what the offending lyric of the song was the “Woop Woop, that’s da sound of the police” part, which is a legendary hip-hop song by KRS-One. Apparently, that reference was cleared and good to go.
Andy Mineo talks a bit about the song and music video for “Been About It” below, although it’s uncertain if certain aspects of what he said will change.