Kanye West's Fall Out Boy Remix Gets Remixed — And Lil Wayne, Paul Wall

[Damien J.]

Back in January, Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz was practically bursting out of his hoodie with excitement about Kanye West's upcoming remix of his band's "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race."
Of course, ever since he broke the news about the collabo, that excitement has tapered off a bit. There was no grand unveiling of the remix, rather it just sorta "debuted" on FriendsOrEnemies.com in February, and then ... well, nothing, really.

But fast-forward to last week, when out of nowhere, 'Ye's remix of "Arms Race" popped up again on FOE, this time complete with brand-new verses from Lil Wayne, Lupe Fiasco, Gym Class Heroes' Travis McCoy, Paul Wall and Tyga, a recent signee to Wentz's Decaydance Records. And all of a sudden, it sort of made sense that the track disappeared for roughly six months ... FOB were busy contacting basically every MC they knew to appear on the remix of the remix.

"Some of this took forever and some of it happened overnight," Wentz told MTV News. "Kanye did his [verse] so fast and I think Lil Wayne has the fastest turnaround of any rapper in the studio. We met Lupe when he played during our set at our Chicago show. And Paul we met on [the Honda Civic Tour], obviously.

"Kanye did his verse and we e-mailed back and forth, Tyga and Trav did their verses together, Paul did it in the bus on tour. And Wayne may have done it in his backyard, it happened so fast," Wentz continued. "We ended up with a bunch of verses that didn't make it on, 'cause we didn't want it to be overkill. So somewhere out there exists another version with a couple of alternate dudes."

And — somewhat surprisingly — this version of "Arms Race" still contains West's original verses, which poked fun at FOB's penchant for tight pants and basically called them out for talking smack about the scene that birthed them. In February, more than a few of the band's fans said they thought the verses were a tad disrespectful, but Wentz sees it differently. If you're gonna be clowned upon, he supposes, you might as well be clowned upon by the best.

"As far as Kanye messing with us, I think it comes with the territory," he said. "We are under no pretense that we are 'down' or 'cool.' We're geeks. Besides, it feels good to get caught in [Kanye's] scope ... even if only because it means you showed up in it."

And now that the new-and-improved "Arms Race" remix is out there, does Wentz have any larger plans for it? Well, if it were up to him, he'd like to keep it street. But he's gonna have to defer to Mr. West on this one ...

"I don't know, a lot of it is in Kanye's hands, and he is pretty much working on his new record all the time," Wentz said. "I think it's just gonna be a mixtape. ... But I'm honestly not sure how mixtapes work."

This report is provided by MTV News