NAV's vocals were mysteriously low in the initial mix of "Yosemite" and, according to the song's engineer, it was an honest mistake.
When released his Grammy-nominated album Astroworld, many fans were surprised to hear NAV on the -featured stand-out "Yosemite." His appearance itself was not shocking. However, the volume of his vocals was.
Initially, the song was released with perfect mixing volumes on Travis Scott and Gunna's verses. When the song made its way to Toronto native NAV, we could . The sweet tones of "La Flame on an island, me and Cash, Gunna hopped on a Learjet" were so low in the mix that fans weren't sure if we were intentionally not supposed to hear NAV. It turns out that it was an honest mistake, fueled by the high-pressure push to get the album released.
"I don't know what happened exactly," says Jimmy Cash during an interview with Genius. Travis Scott's go-to engineer was working with on the album, and he believes it was the product of human error.
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"That was Mike [Dean]. I think it was just a little mistake on that. We were just going on overdrive, over time, you know what I mean? We were just doing so much at once."
On the way to the final mixing session with Dean, Cash got into a serious car accident and, while he was not injured, it can't have helped his mental state going into the studio.
"I got in a crazy car wreck on my way to Mike Dean’s on the last day when we were turning in the cleans, right after we turned in the album," he says. "I got clipped by a little semi up in Studio City on the way up to Mike’s. I was okay and everything but my car was totaled, it was crazy. So we were just on overdrive and I think that was just an honest slip-up. Something happened, I don’t know. It was kind of strange."
It didn't take long for the error to be amended.
Re-visit the song below.