Ezra Koenig Explains Writing Credit on Beyonce’s ‘Lemonade’

Ezra Koenig gave details on his surprising writing credit on Beyoncé‘s Lemonade track “Hold Up” alongside Diplo, Father John Misty and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The Vampire Weekend singer hinted at a long road to the song’s construction when he responded to a lyric of the song he tweeted out in 2011.

Koenig offered the “short version” of the story by writing out a timeline of events that led to his credit. It begins with the release of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Maps” in 2003, which contains the line “Wait, they don’t love you like I love you” repeated in the chorus. In 2011, he had thought of changing “wait” to “hold up,” tweeting out his revision of the line.

He goes on to reveal that three years later, he entered the studio with Diplo, who had been working with an Andy Williams loop that Koenig enjoyed. He wrote lyrics based off his old tweet, including the line “There’s no other God above you, what a wicked way to treat the man who loves you.” He was intending to release it as a Vampire Weekend song before being convinced to send it to Beyoncé, though he does not specify who had convinced him.

Skipping ahead, Koenig adds that much more had been done to the demo in the interim. “Beyoncé 100% made it her own, and I’m very glad to have been a part of it,” he writes.

Koenig’s credit on “Hold Up” is his first with Beyoncé, while Diplo also appears on the Lemonade track “All Night.” In 2011, Diplo produced “End of Time” on Beyoncé’s 4 while her single “Run the World (Girls)” sampled his electronic music group Major Lazer’s “Pon de Floor.”