We Made It

"We Made It"
Single by Busta Rhymes feat. Linkin Park
Recorded:	2007
Released:	June 27, 2008
Format:	CD, Digital
Length:	03:58
Live debut:	May 2, 2008 (Busta Rhymes) May 29, 2008 (Linkin Park)
Last performed:	July 23, 2008 (Linkin Park)
Writer:	Trevor Smith, Marcello Valenzano, Andre Lyon, Chester Bennington, Brad Delson, Mike Shinoda
Producer:	Cool & Dre, Mike Shinoda
Label:	Flipmode, Aftermath, Interscope
Linkin Park singles chronology Leave Out All The Rest (2008) We Made It (2008) New Divide (2009)

"We Made It" is a non-album single by Busta Rhymes featuring Linkin Park. It was released on April 29, 2008, debuting and peaking on the Billboard Hot 100 charts at #65.

Background

Busta Rhymes first met Linkin Park when they were mixing their first album, Hybrid Theory, and he liked their sound.

He told Rolling Stone in November 2007 that a collaboration with Linkin Park was coming, tentatively titled, "It Looks Like We Made It." He said, "It feels like Rocky won the fight or something. It reminds the people who are successful to go and help those that haven’t been so successful, and represent the unity between people. This song speaks volumes to the globe - it ain't just about the 'hood, it ain't just about the suburbs, it's about everybody. This is one of those songs that can't be described better than touching the souls of the common people." He announced that the song would be on his eighth studio album titled Back on My B.S. and was set for a December 4, 2007 release date. The album ended up being postponed to July 7, 2008 and the collaboration was not officially announced until April 2008.

"We Made It" was produced by Cool & Dre. Eddie "Crack Keys" Montilla recorded keyboards while Cool & Dre played all other instruments and also sang the original hook. On May 2, 2008, Busta Rhymes spoke to MTV about the song: "The [beat for the] Linkin Park record was given to me by Cool & Dre about seven months ago. I’m on a bus ride from New York to L.A., about 38 hours. Every time I’m on the bus, I listen to the collective of beats I get for my album, just to vibe. We was listening to that song one day when I heard the beat. Cool & Dre had the chorus on there. I was like, 'This record is one of the biggest anthems,’ because it felt like it was speaking to the common man. It wasn’t exploiting what we usually exploit in hip-hop: the ass, throwing money, rims on the car. At this time in my career, it felt like something was needed, something inspirational. It speaks to the man in the struggle from the 'hood to the upper echelon."

After listening to the song, Busta said Linkin Park kept "popping up in his head", so he contacted the band and asked them to work on the track.

Mike said, "Normally, I'm a little skeptical going into hip-hop tracks. This is the very first time Linkin Park have been featured on anybody else's song. We did the mash-up project with Jay-Z, but that was featuring his music and our music. It's an entirely different thing. What that all comes down to is the strength of the track. That's due in part to Cool & Dre and in part to Busta. When we came in, we did our thing to it and added that next level of something new and different. Each party had a mutual appreciation."

Linkin Park's parts were recorded in 2007 during the band's Asian Tour. As soon as they arrived in Taipei for their first show in Taiwan, the band went straight to a studio to work on the song. They worked from 9pm of November 15th until 6am of November 16th (the day of the show). The vocals were finished at the next stop of the tour, in Shanghai, China. Rumours in the fan community were that Linkin Park was working on new music in Asia, but the extent of the work was not known until April 2008 and that the song was with Busta Rhymes. Mike said, "We were touring in Asia at the time. We cut a lot of our parts in a studio in Taipei. It kind of fit the theme of the song 'We Made It.' We're recording vocals in China, halfway across the world. He's in New York and L.A. doing his thing. On this track, I got to know Busta a little better. He's very much that character, that personality that you see. But there is a side of him that's very humble and down-to-earth that other people don't get to see."

Chester Bennington sang the hook, while Mike Shinoda did some harmonies, a second verse and some production work, and Brad Delson laid down some guitar at the end. While in the studio recording the song, Mike and Chester recorded a short parody video of R. Kelly's behind the scenes video for "Real Talk." In the LPUTV video when the band was making the track, you can see Brad in a producer role for Mike and Chester.

Instead of censoring the song for radio airplay, Busta Rhymes recorded two different vocal takes, each with with different lyrics, for the clean and dirty versions of the song.

When speaking to MTV about his album, Busta Rhymes said: "The record was inspired by the situation that transpired with T.I. right after the BET Hip-Hop Awards. My legal situations were current, and his legal situations were current, and Akon had his, you know, history of legal situations in the past... We wanted people to as bad as things might look for us sometimes just know that it ain't over until you say it's over at the end of the day. 'Cause nobody can really dictate what the outcome of your destiny, what your life is going to end up becoming, unless you let it happen that way."

Release

Mike Shinoda announced the collaboration in his blog on April 16, 2008, saying: "we are pleased to announce a new song, about to hit the streets... a new collaboration we did with the incomparable busta rhymes. chester, busta, and i just shot the video with director chris robinson.. the song is called "we made it" and will be featured on busta's new album "blessed." chester sings on the hook (i did some harmonies) and i do the second verse. i did some production work on it, and brad laid down some guitar at the end. as many of you may realize, this is the first time LP has been "featured" on a new song by any artist. we have done individual cameos in the past (and did a "mash-up”" of existing songs with a certain mr. s-dot-carter) but this is the first time you have seen "featuring linkin park" on any all-new song. for my part, the thing that drew me in was the musicality of the track and the sincerity of busta’s performance. it’s a song about overcoming adversity and celebrating the difficult obstacles that we overcome. i loved writing to it, and hope you all enjoy the song, which should be out soon."

He also said Busta would set up a charity foundation tentatively called the "We Made It Foundation" that would be rewarding young students for quarterly excellence in academics and discipline–at home and at school.

The song was officially released on April 29, 2008.

Unfortunately, "We Made It" was removed from Back on My B.S. (then renamed to Blessed) after Busta Rhymes was dropped from Interscope Records as it was his last song on his label. An advance version of the album shared on the Internet still had "We Made It" as the first track, which suggests that the song was removed at the last minute. Other singles that didn't make the album were "Watch Ya' Mouth" and "Don't Touch Me (Throw Da Water On 'Em)". The latter was featured as a b-side on promotional copies of "We Made It."

Tracklist

CD Single

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1	We Made It	Trevor Smith, Andre Lyon, Marcello Valenzano, Eddie Montilla, Mike Shinoda	3:58
2	We Made It (A Capella Edit)	Trevor Smith, Andre Lyon, Marcello Valenzano, Eddie Montilla, Mike Shinoda	3:00
3	We Made It (Instrumental)	Trevor Smith, Andre Lyon, Marcello Valenzano, Eddie Montilla, Mike Shinoda	3:58
4	We Made It (Video)	Trevor Smith, Andre Lyon, Marcello Valenzano, Eddie Montilla, Mike Shinoda	4:31

Digital Single

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1	We Made It	Trevor Smith, Andre Lyon, Marcello Valenzano, Eddie Montilla, Mike Shinoda	3:58
2	We Made It (A Capella Edit)	Trevor Smith, Andre Lyon, Marcello Valenzano, Eddie Montilla, Mike Shinoda	2:59
3	We Made It (Instrumental)	Trevor Smith, Andre Lyon, Marcello Valenzano, Eddie Montilla, Mike Shinoda	3:58

US Promo

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1	We Made It (Clean)	Trevor Smith, Andre Lyon, Marcello Valenzano, Eddie Montilla, Mike Shinoda	3:56
2	We Made It (Dirty)	Trevor Smith, Andre Lyon, Marcello Valenzano, Eddie Montilla, Mike Shinoda	3:56
3	We Made It (Instrumental)	Trevor Smith, Andre Lyon, Marcello Valenzano, Eddie Montilla, Mike Shinoda	3:56

Belgian Promo

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1	We Made It (Album)	Trevor Smith, Andre Lyon, Marcello Valenzano, Eddie Montilla, Mike Shinoda	3:56
2	We Made It (Instrumental)	Trevor Smith, Andre Lyon, Marcello Valenzano, Eddie Montilla, Mike Shinoda	3:56
3	Don't Touch Me (Throw Da Water On 'Em) Clean	T. Smith, D. Matthews, L. Coppin, H. Rooney	3:36

Music Video

The video for "We Made It" was directed by Chris Robinson and filmed at the same location where Linkin Park were photographed for their Meteora artwork and featured cameo appearances from Styles of Beyond, Bishop Lamont and Lamar Odom.

The music video premiered on BET on Tuesday, April 29, 2008 and on Yahoo! Music for 24 hours only.

The clean version of the song was used in the video.

Video Credits

Artist Name: Busta Rhymes
Song Name: We Made It
Featured Artists: Linkin Park
Director: Chris Robinson
Director of Photography: Barry Norwood
Editor: Jeff Selis
Production Company: Robot Films
Producers: Billy Parks
Director's Rep.: Robin Frank Management
Record Label: Interscope

Versions

Note: Only the date of the very first release of each version is listed.

Title	Album	Length	Recorded	Released	Notes
We Made It (feat. Linkin Park)	We Made It	3:58	2007	April 29, 2008	Clean version. Listed as "We Made It (Album Version)" on the physical single. Recorded for Busta Rhymes' Back On My B.S..
We Made It (Dirty)	We Made It (US Promo)	3:57	2007	2008	Different vocal take. Different lyrics.
We Made It (feat. Linkin Park) (Instrumental)	We Made It	3:58	2007	April 29, 2008
We Made It (feat. Linkin Park) (A Cappella Edit)	We Made It	2:59	2007	April 29, 2008
We Made It (A Cappella Edit)	We Made It (EU Single)	3:00	2007	April 29, 2008	Dirty acapella version mislabeled as clean version. The CD contains only the clean version of the full song.

Live

Linkin Park

The first performance with Linkin Park was at their rehearsal studio Third Encore on May 29, 2008, to an audience of 14 members of the Linkin Park fan club who were blindfolded and taken from Warner Bros HQ in Hollywood to Third Encore, the location of the band's rehearsal spot. Mike said that this was the first time ever that any fans had ever been let into the band's rehearsal studio. Busta Rhymes and Spliff Star joined the band for "We Made It" and then they announced that Busta Rhymes would join Linkin Park on the Projekt Revolution Tour.

Mike said, "Apparently, Busta was telling people, 'You don't understand, I'm going to be on that tour; you need to get me on that tour.' I was saying to our touring committee... with the single, it would be really great to do at least some shows with Busta." Unfortunately, he had to leave the tour after his label dropped him on July 22, 2008. He performed the show in Wantagh, New York that day, but did not perform his set the next day in Holmdel, New Jersey. He did, however, come out to perform "We Made It" with Linkin Park one last time at the show that night in Holmdel. For days, fan rumors circulated online that Busta got into a physical confrontation with Mike on the tour, but these were of course unfounded and untrue. Mike explained to fans on his blog on July 27, 2008: "busta rhymes has unfortunately had to leave projekt revolution. we were all extremely disappointed to see him go; we enjoyed the energy and personality he brought to the tour, and we looked forward to playing “we made it” on stage with him each night. his departure was due to a number of complicated business matters that were out of anyone’s control. we hope to cross paths with busta again soon!"

The first public performance of "We Made It" happened at the first show of the Projekt Revolution Tour, in Mansfield, Massachusetts, on July 16, 2008. The song would be performed at only 5 more shows: Burgettstown, Camden, Hartford, Wantagh, Holmdel. All performances featured Spliff Star on backing vocals and Adam Monroe from ASHES dIVIDE on keyboards.

Busta Rhymes

The song was first performed on May 2, 2008 during Busta Rhymes' concert at Club Index in Schüttorf, Germany. Another confirmed performance happened on May 6, 2008 at Nachtschicht Hard in Vorarlberg, Austria.

During those concerts, the studio instrumental was played, Busta Rhymes rapped his verses, lip synced the chorus and told the audience to move their arms up and down during Mike Shinoda's verse. Spliff Star was on backing vocals.

Personnel

• Vocal - Busta Rhymes
• Vocal - Chester Bennington
• Vocal, Guitar – Mike Shinoda
• Guitar – Brad Delson
• Keyboards – Eddie "Crack Keys" Montilla
• All Other Instruments – Cool & Dre

Production

• Written by Andre Lyon (Dre), Eddie Montilla, Marcello Valenzano (Cool), Mike Shinoda, Trevor Smith (Busta Rhymes)
• Produced by Cool & Dre for SupaNova Management, Inc.
• Co-produced by Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park
• Recorded by Gina Victoria at The Record Room Studios, N. Miami, FL; Mike Shinoda at MegaForce Studios, Taipei, China; and by Rande Johnson at Buzz Soundwerks, NYC
• Mixed by Neil Pogue at The Mix Room, N. Hollywood, CA
• Guitar by Mike Shinoda and Brad Delson
• Keys by Eddie "Crack Keys" Montilla
• All other instruments by Cool & Dre

Lyrics

Explicit Version

Together we made it
We made it, even though we had our backs up against the wall

See it niggas I survived the worst but my life is glorious
But I know that I live to be hurdled when I'm so victorious
Take a look I'm a symbol of greatness now call it Morpheus
As force accumulated the wind and but a believe I'm so notorious
You know I've been buying my bread even though we rapping now (yes)
And now when you look on my trip and you a nigga higher level tramping now
And you see that everyone on my middle struggers and
For your ass is never been an option
A nigga paper long like we was on the trap and the hood choppin
Get it!

Together we made it (You see we did it, niggas!)
We made it even though we had our backs up against the wall (C'mon!)
Forever we waited *Ha-ha!*
And they told us we were never going to get it
But we took it on the road (Through the riches)
On the road (Through the ghetto)
On the road (And the projects to this bangin instrumental)
On the road (Ride with me) *yeah, yeah*
On the road (You come and get it) *yeah, yeah*
On the road *yeah, yeah, yeah, yo!*

When it all got started we were steadily just getting rejected
And it seemed like nothing we could do would ever get us respected
At best we were stressed at the worst they probably said we're pathetic
Had all the pieces to that puzzle just no way to connect it
I was fighting through every rhyme tightening up every line
Never resting to question if I was out of my mind
It finally came time to do it or let it die
So put the chips on the table and told 'em to let it ride
Sing it! Yeah!
 
Oh, woah
Together we made it (You see we did it, niggas!)
We made it even though we had our backs up against the wall (C'mon!)
Forever we waited *Ha-ha!*
And they told us we were never going to get it
But we took it on the road (Through the riches)
On the road (Through the ghetto)
On the road (And the projects to this bangin instrumental)
On the road (Ride with me)
On the road (You come and get it)
On the road

Look in case you misunderstanded exactly what I'm building
Is shit that I could live for my children's (children's) children's (children)
Now I only wake up a smile to see how far I've come
Fighting for sales on a strip to get hustle from
From nights in jail on a bench using my muscles son
To count money like Dre, and Jimmy or Russell Ones (Yeah, nigga!)
But now I live when I dream you see me finally getting it
Let's make a toast to the hustle regardless how we get it
Sing it!
 
Oh, woah
Together we made it (You see we did it, niggas!)
We made it even though we had our backs up against the wall (C'mon!)
Forever we waited *Ha-ha!*
And they told us we were never going to get it
But we took it on the road (Through the riches)
On the road (Through the ghetto)
On the road (And the projects to this bangin instrumental)
On the road (Ride with me)
On the road (You come and get it)
On the road / Oh *yeah, yeah, yeah*

Clean Version

Together we made it
We made it even though we had our backs up against the wall

As you can see it I survived the worst / But my life is glorious
But I know that I live to be hurdled / When I'm so victorious
Take a look / I'm a symbol of greatness now you call me Morpheus
As force accumulated the wind / Better believe I'm so notorious
You know that I've been buyin' my bread even though we rapping now (yes)
And used to live on the strip even though we should be higher level tramping now
Superceded everyone of my little struggles and
Failure have never ever been an option (trust)
You see my paper long like we was on the trap and we bout ta take the hood shoppin'
Get it!

Oh, woah
Together we made it (You see we did it, did it)
We made it even though we had our backs up against the wall (C'mon!)
Forever we waited *Ha-ha!*
And they told us we were never going to get it
But we took it on the road (Through the riches)
On the road (Through the ghetto)
On the road (And the projects to this bangin' instrumental)
On the road (Ride with me)
On the road (You come and get it)
On the road *yeah, yeah, yeah*

When it all got started we were steadily just getting rejected
And it seemed like nothing we could do would ever get us respected
At best we were stressed at the worst they probably said we're pathetic
Had all the pieces to that puzzle just no way to connect it
I was fighting through every rhyme tightening up every line
Never resting to question if I was out of my mind
It finally came time to do it or let it die
So put the chips on the table and told 'em to let it ride
Sing it! Yeah!

Together we made it (You see we did it, did it)
We made it even though we had our backs up against the wall (C'mon!)
Forever we waited *Ha-ha!*
And they told us we were never going to get it
But we took it on the road (Through the riches)
On the road (Through the ghetto)
On the road (And the projects to this bangin' instrumental)
On the road (Ride with me)
On the road (You come and get it)
On the road *yeah, yeah, yeah*

Look in case you misunderstand exactly what I'm building
Is things that I can leave for my children's (children's) children's (children)
Now I only wake up a smile to see how far I've come
Fighting for sales on a strip to get hustle from
From nights in jail on a bench using my muscles son
To count money like Dre, and Jimmy or Russell Ones
But now I live when I dream you see me finally did it
Let's make a toast to the hustle regardless how we get it
Sing it!

Oh, woah
Together we made it (You see we did it, did it)
We made it even though we had our backs up against the wall (C'mon!)
Forever we waited *Ha-ha!*
And they told us we were never going to get it
But we took it on the road (Through the riches)
On the road (Through the ghetto)
On the road (And the projects to this bangin' instrumental)
On the road (Ride with me)
On the road (You come and get it) *yeah*
On the road / Oh *yeah, yeah, yeah*

Gallery

• 

  Single

• 

  Japanese single with obi

• 

  Vinyl

• 

  Promo CD

• 

  Tak, Cheapshot, Ryu, Mike Shinoda, Bishop Lamont and Chris Robinson

In Other Media

• "We Made It" is featured in the 2008 videogame Madden NFL 09.

Other Uses

• This song was sampled by Chamillionaire in the song "The Real Thang" on the mixtape Mixtape Messiah 4 released in 2008.

External Links

• We Made It (feat. Linkin Park) (Music Video): Busta's YouTube
• REAL TALK with Mike and Chaz: YouTube
• LPUTV: "Making of We Made It": YouTube