Have Mercy by Cordae Song Info
On “Have Mercy,” Cordae displays his lyrical dexterity over a flute-laced instrumental while asking for mercy due to his transgressions. This could also be an indirect subtle warning to his musical peers. He addresses lifes uncertainties and challenges, takes a jab once again at the “Old Niggas” and flexes his success in retrospect. This serves as his second solo release of 2019 following “Locationships” in late January. On February 14, 2019, he posted a video on instagram playing the song for Diddy to which he replied: “He’s a special one.“ He announced its release a day prior through a tweet. There are two music videos for the song. The first one is Path A and the other is Path B. Cordae mentions the “path” in these lines: “I don’t know where I’m goin', huh But I hope I’m on the right path“ “I was in the studio all day, right? I be takin' naps in the studio, ‘cause I be in that shit all day, so I took a nap at like 11. I take naps at the weirdest times, for real. I took a nap at like 11 and I woke up at like 3 AM, and then I wake up and my little bro, the cat who produced it, Kidd and Flip and then Brent my engineer. Kidd in there, playin’ with the drums and Flip got the sample. And then Kidd start adding the drums and automatically it was just like, “Sweet Lord, please have mercy. Baby Jesus, please save us.” I think I had a nightmare or some shit. You know what I’m sayin'? I just woke up like, “Sweet Lord …” And I was goin' through a bunch of shit around that time. Just the same shit everybody go through. ‘Cause I feel like the world needs saving. Not just from like a religious standpoint, obviously. But just like, the world is fucked up, bro, like help! Nigga, please! You feel me? And we just all in the studio like, “Damn! That shit hard.” I don’t really think it was any like actual world events that I was thinking about at that current time. But I mean, some fucked up shit happens every fuckin’ week. Every day, really, in the world. So, it’s crazy.“ “I always like freestyle my hooks. I started like freestyling the verses, but I write it down, ‘cause I be forgettin’ it. So I like literally rappin', put it in the voice notes, but then I have to write it down when I go to record so I don’t forget the shit. But I freestyle like the whole hook. Wrote like half of half the verses.“
