By now, we all know what “WAP” stands for, so it’s pretty hard to believe that the R-rated video for Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s Hot 100-topping collaboration drew inspiration from a G-rated source.
A new “Vevo Footnotes” clip on Thursday (Oct. 29) gives a look into the making of “WAP,” and the music video’s director Colin Tilley shared that he’s “a big Tim Burton fan, I would say I’m always inspired by childhood books, Dr. Suess, etc.” The characteristically distorted styles of the childhood favorites can be seen in the gaudy, funhouse-esque nature of the mansion Cardi and Meg explore in the video.
The footnotes also reveal how Cardi B decided on that final, infectious hook–and turns out, she didn’t really like it at first. “I just had like an original hook to ‘WAP’ and I didn’t really like it,” she shared. “I sent it to some female artists to see if they could do the hook, they couldn’t really do it and I started playing around again with the hook and was like, ‘You know what? I’m just going to keep it like that.'”
“I always liked it, ‘Now from the top, make it drop, that’s some wet a– p—-, I just felt like the hook also had a lot of ‘wet a– p—-, wet a– p—-,'” she continued. “I just felt like ‘p—-, p—-, p—-,’ and I just didn’t like that. But, I don’t know, I couldn’t come up with anything else, so whatever.”
As for Cardi’s favorite part of the video? The solo shots. “I really liked my solo, I like both solos because I just really thought and I knew that it was gonna be so fire. A room completely covered with cheetah.”
“A room covered with like, tigers,” she said of Megan’s moment. “I originally wanted Megan to have a spider on her head, I don’t know why, I just thought it was gonna be so beautiful.”
Watch the full “Footnotes” video below.