on january 4, 2013, kid ink has announced he had signed a deal with rca records and premiered the lead single for his debut project titled "bad ass" featuring wale and meek mill. "bad ass" was meant to be a single to tide fans over for his first full-length. rca associate director of marketing shani fuller said, "we wanted to continue along the theme of being an indie and releasing music all the time," "we just really wanted to feed his fans with new music and a new look as we approached his album later in the year." six tracks were selected from more than 140 possible cuts for the disc and a few songs were streamed ahead of release, including "sunset," a track that kid ink says "really motivated the ep. the ep features additional guest appearances from asap ferg, and french montana on a remix of his mixtape track "bossin' up". on the following day, after the eps release he released a freestyle which was set to be the eps first track.