Producer Breyan Isaac Says Cardi B’s ‘Bongos’ Predates Lincoln 3Dot’s ‘Bang’

Breyan Isaac, who co-produced Cardi B and Meg Thee Stallion’s Bongos, has dismissed as coincidental the similarities between the track and Lincoln 3Dot’s Bang.

Isaac, who spoke to Sleek Jamaica on the matter, also made several other revelations debunking the claims of impropriety by Cardi B, one of which was that despite only just recently being released, production for Bongos actually began in 2018.

“The song was originally recorded around the beginning of October 2018,” Isaac revealed. “I produced the existing version after trying a few different productions at the end of October (same year). I started sending around to different people around 2019, so it’s been in conversation for a while.”

Following Bongos‘ release on September 7, there was an uproar on social media after fans noticed some striking similarities between the song and Lincoln 3Dot’s Bang, produced by Track Starr in 2021. The Dancehall artist also shared a cryptic Instagram post, which invited swarms of comments encouraging him to sue Cardi B and Megan over the apparent similarities.

Isaac, who has worked with an impressive roster of international acts, including J. Balvin, Kesha, Pitbull, and Damian Marley, said that his voice – not that of Lincoln 3Dot – is used as the vocal sample for Bongos. Though the execution bears some similarity to the Track Starr-produced Bang, Isaac also explained that his is a chopped version of the word Bongos – an idea that also took root in 2018.

He shared: “I loved a hook that bongos got the name from that I had a voice memo of. [I] was trying to just find the right feel to place the hook. The bong is just a chopped version of me saying ‘bongos’ in the hook. The original bounce from the drums and vocal chops you hear in the beginning are me.”

The Boston native also supported his claims with an audio file and accompanying metadata, adding credence to his account that the track’s origin story began in 2018.

In 2020, two years after he began working on the track and a year before the release of Lincoln 3Dot’s Bang, Isaac revealed that We Good picked up the beat.

Commenting on the track’s uniqueness, Isaac told Billboard last Friday that its success is a result of it having “a completely different feel,” especially when compared to Cardi B and Meg Thee Stallion’s last project together – the Billboard-topping WAP.

According to Isaac, who was joined in that discussion by We Good’s Donny ‘Dizzy’ Flores: “It’s a completely different feel… I mean, it’s a new kind of bounce, to be honest, production-wise. It’s a different kind of direction from what WAP was, which was a little bit more of a mid-tempo vibe, but this is more of an up-tempo vibe, giving you more action, and something more to do.” 

Interestingly, both producers revealed the track wasn’t initially meant for Cardi B and Meg Thee Stallion. They were, however, open to where the track would lead, and according to Isaac, they were happy with how it turned out.

For her part, Cardi B appeared to corroborate Isaac’s account of events relating to the track, revealing in a SiriusXM interview that she had been sitting on the song “for a minute.”

“I had the beat for a minute, I had the record for a minute… but it always sounded incomplete. It just sounded to me like a long sentence, so I’m like, ‘This song needs a feature,” Cardi explained. After that point, Meg Thee Stallion was tapped to appear on the single.

In the meantime, Dancehall fans remain adamant that Bongos drew inspiration from Bang, which was released in 2021.