With “Forever,” the monster collaboration by Toronto-upstart Drake and rap superstars Kanye West, Lil Wayne and Eminem, leaking onto the net yesterday (August 26) and subsequently causing a frenzy with hip-hop fans, XXL Magazine caught up with the track’s producer, Boi-1da, to get more insight into how the song came together.

According to the beatmaker (based in Toronto), the track was initially meant to introduce Drake last year. “We made that song maybe last summer,” he explains. “It was originally supposed to be a song that Drake was supposed to come out to, maybe we were trying to make it like a first single. Somehow it got leaked out onto the Internet, a version with him, Wayne and some dude named [Nut da] Kid and everybody was upset about it or whatever, but we knew that it was just a huge record and we had to do it justice.”

Three months ago, Kanye West decided to record a verse for the song. “Originally it was supposed to be Drake and Kanye, but the forces that be pulled some strings and we got Eminem and Wayne on it too.”

According to Boi-1da, Drizzy first penned the hook and his verse. Then Kanye wrote his lines as a response to Drake. Weezy F Baby then recorded his verse after hearing Drake and Ye’s, and Eminem heard everyone’s rhymes before adding his bars to the track.

XXL asked Boi-1da who he thinks had the best verse, and he answered right away. “Honestly I’m gonna have to be biased and say Drake. Really it’s between Drake and Eminem. I’ve never seen anybody hold up on a song with Eminem, like usually Eminem blows out. Drake’s my dude, and he’s my favorite rapper, but knowing Eminem I thought he was gonna blow by everybody, but Drake came strong. It’s like a toss up. And like that’s never been done before, I never heard a toss up between Eminem, it’s always just Eminem cause he’s a monster.”

Mack Maine, the President of Young Money, told MTV that the group is currently trying out RnB singers to redo the chorus, but 1da believes the leaked track is the final version. “That’s news to me,” he said. “I like the hook as it is.”

“Forever” hits iTunes tomorrow. It will be included in the soundrack to the LeBron James documentary, More Than a Game.