"I'm God"
The face of a woman wearing a white mask. Black bars appear at the top and the bottom due to letterboxing.
Single cover art on streaming services, taken from Perdues dans New York (1989)
Instrumental by Clams Casino and Imogen Heap
from the album Instrumental Relics
Released2011 (unofficial)
April 24, 2020 (2020-04-24) (official)
RecordedApril 2009
GenreCloud rap
Length4:37
LabelClams Casino Productions
Songwriter(s)Michael Volpe, Imogen Heap
Producer(s)Michael Volpe
Clams Casino chronology
"I'm the Devil"
(2020)		 "I'm God"
(2020)		 "Haunt"
(2021)
Imogen Heap chronology
"The Quiet"
(2019)		 "I'm God"
(2020)		 "Phase and Flow"
(2020)

"I'm God" is an instrumental track by American producer Clams Casino and British singer Imogen Heap, released officially on April 24, 2020 and appearing on Clams' album Instrumental Relics. Clams Casino created "I'm God" by sampling Heap's song "Just for Now" (2005), after learning of her through a friend. Clams then sent the track to American rapper Lil B, who rapped over it. The final result appeared on Lil B's debut album, 6 Kiss (2009). Clams released the instrumental unofficially in 2011 and, following years of unsuccessful attempts to clear the sample usage, it received an official release nine years later. "I'm God" is considered an important instrumental of the cloud rap subgenre and received a cult following on the Internet.

Background and release

Clams Casino sampled "Just for Now", a song by Imogen Heap (pictured in 2010).

Clams Casino stated he got serious about music production in late 2007, when he started publishing his songs online. Clams was using MySpace to contact artists and rappers, sending free beats to them. As he was a "super fan" of The Pack, he decided to reach out to one of its rappers, Lil B.[1] Their first interaction was around September 2008 via MySpace, and Clams later obtained Lil B's e-mail address.[2]

"I'm God" was produced around April 2009.[3][4] The track samples "Just for Now" (2005), a track by British singer Imogen Heap. Clams discovered her through a friend, who sent him a song of hers for Casino to sample. While not managing to do it for that song, he went through other Heap's songs and discovered "Just for Now". Casino liked Heap's voice on the track and created different beats with it, including "I'm God". He considers its vocal sample the main aspect he likes from the song.[5] Clams Casino said he didn't find "I'm God" "special" and didn't think much of it initially.[1][4] He sent the instrumental to different artists, but Lil B was the first one to have a very positive reaction, which Clams described as Lil B "freaking out".[3][4][5] Lil B then recorded his vocals over it.[3] The final result appeared on debut solo studio album, 6 Kiss, released on December 22, 2009. This was his first ever collaboration.[6]

In 2011, the instrumental was unofficially released by Clams Casino on places such as Zippyshare and Twitter.[1][3][4] The next year, it appeared on his Instrumentals 2 mixtape.[7] Initially, Clams Casino didn't think of clearing the usage of the "Just for Now" sample, as he wasn't "thinking about the business side" and he didn't expect to "make money off of anything", as he was just uploading free tracks on social media for fun.[1][4] As the years went by, Clams tried to have the sample cleared for an official release, but had issues as many people were involved, since "Just for Now" was released through a major label.[1] Although Clams and Heap's teams were having trouble with the sample clearage, Clams said that Heap was "into it", as long as she was credited, and enjoyed "I'm God".[4] In 2019, Heap's team had softened on the idea of an official release.[4] On April 24, 2020, it received an official release as part of Clams' Instrumental Relics mixtape, after he got the rights to sample "Just for Now". Heap is now credited alongside him.[3][8]

Composition

"I'm God" is an instrumental cloud rap song that extensively samples a stretched-out version of Imogen Heap's "Just for Now".[3] Her vocals were edited "to carry off a floating, angelic quality", according to Steve Shaw of Fact,[7] while Complex's Craig Jenkins described the vocals as "spectral" and being outfitted "with pillowy bass and subdued drums".[6] Jon Caranamica of The New York Times said that the song renders Heap "even more tragic than she was on her own".[9] Nadine Smith of Pitchfork said the song "decays and disintegrates inside your eardrum" and contains "innovation and ethereality", with a sample that was "unforgettable".[8] Vice's Dhruva Balram described the instrumental as "psychedelic",[3] while Smith thought the drum programming "skews more boom-bap than trap".[8] Writing for Complex, Kyle Garb considered it a key track from the witch house era.[10]

Reception and legacy

Katie Cunningham of Red Bull described "I'm God" as "cloud rap's seminal track",[1] while Balram of Vice said it was "widely regarded as the birth of cloud rap".[3] Will Schube of Complex described it as "a brilliant and stunning landmark of a subgenre of rap still prevalent today".[4] Spin named it the 7th best track of 2011.[11] In 2013, Crag Jenkins of Complex called "I'm God" one of the "25 Best Rap Beats of The Last 5 Years" and said that it "shines" as the opening track of Clams Casino's discography, which was by then full of "majestic, oceanic production work".[6] Reviewing Instrumental Relics (2020), Nadine Smith of Pitchfork described "I'm God" as "the definitive Clams Casino recording", which, when released in 2011, was "instantly iconic, immediately imitated, and impossible to recreate".[8] In 2016, Dutch DJ San Holo remixed the song.[12]

"I'm God" received a cult following on the Internet,[1][3][4] and was one of the first known Clams Casino's productions.[6] By 2011, the track had inspired people both to create tracks sampling "Just for Now" and to recreate the "I'm God" instrumental when it still wasn't available,[5] and it was considered the representative song of "based music".[9][13] It was shared on file-sharing services and unofficially uploaded to YouTube, SoundCloud and other social media by fans, becoming viral.[1][3] Katie Cunningham of Red Bull described "I'm God" as "one of the most far-reaching hits of hip-hop's blog days" which every Internet user "with an appetite for new sounds" got interested in at the time it was unofficially released in 2011.[1] Will Schube of Complex said that, "[b]y 2016, the song had been pseudoviral for a number of years".[4]

An unofficial music video for "I'm God" which uses clips from the 1989 movie Perdues dans New York, uploaded before the song's official release, had 25 million views by May 2020. The video became synonymous with the track.[3] The song received a cult following partly due to two suicide stories being related to it: Billy Watts, who had posted the song to his Instagram account weeks before his death, and David Higgs, who referred to it in 4chan posts (although it is unconfirmed that he died).[3] The video's title was updated as a tribute to Watts and Higgs,[3] and its comment section "became a place to mourn lost loved ones".[1][3] The song has been associated with "stories of hope and recovery", with Internet users stating the song's impact while they struggled with depression.[3]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Cunningham, Katie (June 1, 2020). "How Clams Casino made internet history with 'I'm God'". Red Bull. Retrieved December 25, 2023.
  2. ↑ Dombal, Ryan (March 31, 2011). "Rising: Clams Casino". Pitchfork. Retrieved December 26, 2023.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Balram, Dhruva (May 7, 2020). "The Dark Internet History of Clams Casino's Cult Song 'I'm God'". Vice. Retrieved December 25, 2023.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Schube, Will (May 14, 2020). "The Decade-Long Journey of Clams Casino's Iconic "I'm God"". Complex. Retrieved December 26, 2023.
  5. 1 2 3 Noz (2011). "Clams Casino". Red Bull Music Academy. Retrieved December 25, 2023.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 Jenkins, Craig (September 3, 2013). "The 25 Best Rap Beats of The Last 5 Years". Complex. Retrieved December 25, 2023.
  7. 1 2 3 Shaw, Steve (June 12, 2012). "Clams Casino: Instrumentals 2". Fact. Retrieved December 26, 2023.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Smith, Nadine (May 6, 2020). "Clams Casino: Instrumental Relics". Pitchfork. Retrieved December 26, 2023.
  9. 1 2 3 Caramanica, Jon (August 16, 2011). "A Befuddling Sound, but Danceable Nonetheless". The New York Times. Retrieved December 25, 2023.
  10. ↑ Garb, Kyle (October 31, 2023). "Witch House: An Intro To The Microgenre That Influenced Everyone From Tyler, The Creator To ASAP Rocky". Complex. Retrieved December 26, 2023.
  11. ↑ Aaron, Charles (February 2012). "Best Songs of the Year". Spin. p. 42. ISSN 0886-3032. Retrieved December 26, 2023.
  12. ↑ Ceccarelli, Katey (September 14, 2016). "San Holo's edit of Clams Casino's "I'm God" is synth heaven". Earmilk. Retrieved December 26, 2023.
  13. ↑ Soderberg, Brandon (April 8, 2011). "Clams Casino: Instrumental Mixtape". Pitchfork. Retrieved December 25, 2023.
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