Nigerian singer Adekunle Gold has revealed that he once wrote a song for Beyoncé’s The Lion King project but later hoped the American superstar would reject it so he could keep and release it himself.
Adekunle Gold said the opportunity came in 2019 when his manager informed him that Parkwood Entertainment, Beyoncé’s company, had reached out to him to write a song for the project.
According to the singer, the opportunity came at a difficult time because he had just lost his father, who was in Lagos while he was in Los Angeles, United States.
He explained in an interview on One 54 podcast that the news of the songwriting opportunity initially excited him because Beyoncé was one of his biggest musical inspirations.
However, the death of his father made it difficult for him to concentrate on creating music for the project.
He said: “I was in L.A. when I got the call, actually. I was in L.A. My manager texted me that Parkwood reached out. They wanted me to write for the Lion King project. Another crazy news, I lost my dad. I was in L.A. and he was in Lagos, and then I lost him. So I had to go home. I was so excited about writing for Beyoncé because that’s my GOAT, you get? So I was like, how am I going to write a song when I just lost my dad?
“So I just lost interest. And they kept trying to, you know, because there was a deadline. My manager at that time was just telling me, ‘Just try, see what you can come up with.’ So I’m like, okay, I got in the studio, wrote a song. The song is called ‘Simile.’ But when I wrote the song, it felt too personal that I didn’t want Beyoncé to have it. I didn’t want her to have it. I was supposed to submit anyways, so I just kind of submitted the song like, I hope she doesn’t like it enough to leave it for me.
“And that’s what happened because I submitted way too late. So then I kept the song. And now the song is on my latest album. I wrote the song in 2019 and I released it. I finished it in 2020. Writing for Beyoncé, yeah, that’s crazy. That’s insane.”
