Top 14 How Much Does Metro Boomin Charge Per Beat The 24 Top Answers

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How much do rappers pay for a beat?

The reality is that people are going to pay big for beats that are fantastic and will not mind paying less for average beats. Some people will charge around $1.99 for beats and others may charge $50. On a much bigger scale, beats can probably sell for anywhere from $300 to in the thousands.

How much should a producer charge for a beat?

A typical non-exclusive instrumental beat might go for $25-100, while an exclusive beat may go for $300 or more. Now, these are just examples. Your prices will also depend upon your level of experience. My example is for an average non-famous and non-established beat maker/music producer.

How long does it take Metro Boomin to make a beat?

I made the beat in 5 minutes. We already had the hook and stuff together. So we went down to the studio, and I remember singing it, or he was singing it for Young Jeezy. Then we played him the beat.

How much do beat makers make per song?

The standard percentage that beatmakers get is 50% of the publishing royalties, and 3%-5% of the master royalties. It’s important to acknowledge that the Master copyright is separate from the Songwriting copyright. Therefore, even if someone remakes your beat or loop you’re still entitled to publishing royalties.

How do beat makers get paid?

Public performances generate performance royalties for songwriters/producers, which are collected by the PROs (ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC). A songwriter receives a public performance royalty when their song is performed on terrestrial broadcast radio, in a live performance venue, or via online streaming services.

How much does an exclusive beat cost?

Exclusive Pricing $200-$10,000+

It’s not unusual to be able to purchase the exclusive rights to a beat from a new or unknown producer for as little as a couple hundred dollars. The higher up the producer food chain you go, however, the more money you’re likely going to have to shell out to secure the exclusive.

How much does Pierre charge for a beat?

Trippie Redd and Pi’erre Bourne are no longer on good terms, airing out their drama on social media. Trippie Redd had something to say about a producer and engineer that he claims to have been close to for a minute, noting that the same guy is now charging him $80K for beats.

What is Metro Boomin best beat?

A Definitive Guide to Metro Boomin’s Best Beats

“Bad & Boujee” Migos featuring Lil Uzi Vert.
“Mask Off” Future.
“Where Ya At” Future featuring Drake.
“You Was Right” Lil Uzi Vert.
“Digital Dash” Drake and Future.
“Clout” Offset featuring Cardi B.
“No Complaints” Metro Boomin featuring Offset and Drake.
“The Blanguage”

Does Metro Boomin still use FL Studio?

He still uses a keyboard and FL Studio, or Fruity Loops, the program he made his first beat on. His mom gifted him an MPC when he was a teenager, says Metro, though he rarely uses it.

Who is the most paid producer?

Top Grossing Producer at the Worldwide Box OfficeBETA

Rank	Name	Average
1	Kevin Feige	$797,951,101
2	Kathleen Kennedy	$368,460,660
3	Jerry Bruckheimer	$309,351,997
4	David Heyman	$410,749,577

How do I sell my beat to an artist?

You should follow these seven steps to start a successful beat-selling business.

Build a Catalog of High-Quality Beats. …
Build a Beat Selling Website. …
Build an Email List. …
Promote Your Beats Online. …
Create Content to Attract Music Artists. …
Contact Music Artists Directly. …
Use Beat Selling Marketplaces.

How much does Dr Dre charge for a song?

Rolling Stone reported: “For outside projects such as the Gwen Stefani/Eve collaboration ‘Rich Girl,’ seeing the Doctor is expensive: Dre earns roughly $250,000 per track.”

How do I sell my beats to rappers?

You should follow these seven steps to start a successful beat-selling business.

Build a Catalog of High-Quality Beats. …
Build a Beat Selling Website. …
Build an Email List. …
Promote Your Beats Online. …
Create Content to Attract Music Artists. …
Contact Music Artists Directly. …
Use Beat Selling Marketplaces.

How much do rappers pay producers?

The salaries of Hip Hop Producers in the US range from $11,227 to $300,229 , with a median salary of $53,923 . The middle 57% of Hip Hop Producers makes between $53,925 and $135,866, with the top 86% making $300,229.

I ASKED 100 RAP PRODUCERS THEIR PRICE FOR A BEAT?! *surprising*

how much does metro boomin charge per beat

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Summary of article content: Articles about how much does metro boomin charge per beat Some people will charge around $1.99 for beats and others may charge $50. On a much bigger scale, beats can probably sell for anywhere from $300 … …
Most searched keywords: Whether you are looking for how much does metro boomin charge per beat Some people will charge around $1.99 for beats and others may charge $50. On a much bigger scale, beats can probably sell for anywhere from $300 …
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how much does metro boomin charge per beat

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Most searched keywords: Whether you are looking for How Much Do (Serious) Rappers Pay For Beats In 2022? – Omari MC Updating Producers starting out in the music industry can struggle with how much to charge when selling beats to rappers. The fact is, producers have to sell their beats with confidence to get what they feel the beat is worth. So how much do serious rappers pay for beats? If you sell it right, the answer is a lot.
Table of Contents:

Don’t Get Ripped Off

It’s A Business

Royalties

Don’t Give Away All Your Beats For Free

Be Persistent

SPOTIFY CAMPAIGN EXAMPLES

SMALL CAMPAIGN EXAMPLES

MEDIUM CAMPAIGN EXAMPLES

LARGE CAMPAIGN EXAMPLES

KID TRAVIS (R&B POP)

How Much Do (Serious) Rappers Pay For Beats In 2022? - Omari MC — How Much Do (Serious) Rappers Pay For Beats In 2022? – Omari MC

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Table of Contents:

Pricing Your Beats Emotionally

Pricing Your Beats Logically

Exclusive or Not

Pricing Your Non-exclusive Beats

Pricing Your Exclusive Beats

Conclusion

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Most searched keywords: Whether you are looking for Metro Boomin, Sonny Digital, Zaytoven | Red Bull Music Academy Updating Explore the Red Bull Music Academy archive, tracing the global music institutionâs more than 20-year history
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Metro Boomin, Sonny Digital, Zaytoven | Red Bull Music Academy

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Summary of article content: Articles about Royalties Beat makers Get – Explained Simply [With Infographics!] – Wealthy Sound | Mixing and Production Tutorials Updating …
Most searched keywords: Whether you are looking for Royalties Beat makers Get – Explained Simply [With Infographics!] – Wealthy Sound | Mixing and Production Tutorials Updating As a Music Producer/Beatmaker, you are entitled to a part of the publishing/songwriting royalties and the “Sound Recording” / “Master” royalties resulting from streams and sales of the recording.The standard percentage that Producers & Beatmakers get is 50% of the publishing royalties, and 3%-5% of the master royalties.
Table of Contents:

Learn anything you need easily in one place!

Mixing & Mastering

Production Tips

Songwriting

Marketing & Royalties

What Are MasterMechanical Royalties

What Are PerformancePublishingSongwriting Royalties

What Royalties Can You Get

How Much Publishing Royalties Do ProducersBeatmakers Get

What Can You Do To Get More Royalties Now

Can You Get More Royalties Overtime

Are Royalties The Only Way Producers Are Paid

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How Much Do (Serious) Rappers Pay For Beats In 2022?

One way to entice potential clients into working with you is to give them a couple of free beats. You can see how this is done properly through guys like Pink Fader.

But you never want to give away all your beats for free, or else people will start expecting it all the time.

The fact is that clients are really going to pay whatever you ask if they love your beats enough. The problem only happens when you decide to just give your beats away for free. This is something that will only hurt you (as well as others in the industry) in the long run.

People will begin to expect that you will just give them your beats for free and you will never make money that way.

There are going to be those beat producers in the industry that are going to complain if they feel as though you are undercutting them, but just keep in mind a lot of these producers are struggling to sell their own beats so they want to blame you for their issues.

How To Price Your Beats The Right Way

One of the biggest mistakes I made when I got started as a music producer was setting the wrong price for my beats. I know that this is a common issue we as producers struggle with. Each instrumental track that you create is a work of art, so you must be careful not to just give it away.

At the same time, it does you no good to set your price so high that no one is willing to pay your asking price. It comes down to finding a balance that will allow you to make a steady income selling your production to your target audience.

As a veteran music producer with over 25 years experience, I’ve made tens of thousands of dollars a year selling my work. In this article I share with you some what I’ve learn over the years how to price your beats the right way.

Pricing Your Beats Emotionally

When making music comes natural for you, it’s easy to let your emotions get in the way. Someone who prices his beats emotionally might say, “Well, it only took me 30 minutes to do this track, so I won’t charge a lot for it” or “I know the people I’m selling the beat to won’t have a lot of money, so I’ll keep my price to where I know they can afford it.” Does this sound familiar? If so, it’s time to change you’re thinking, because you’re not getting the maximum amount possible for your music production.

Pricing Your Beats Logically

So, if pricing your beats emotionally is a bad method, how then should you price your beats? From my experience I’ve gotten more money when I price my beats logically. This means being aware of what the market value is for each beat that you create.

To get this information, you have to study your competition. What are they charging for their beats with a similar sound. Now, I can already hear that “producer ego” coming into the picture, so I’m going to tell you right now to DROP IT!

Stop thinking that you’re music is the hottest, and that no one can compare with your sound. It’s okay to be confident in your abilities, but over confidence or cockiness is border line arrogance. The truth is, that there will always be someone not as good as you are and someone else that’s way better than you. You have to let go of your ego to determine where along the line you truly fall.

A good place to do your market research is SoundClick.com. There are 100’s of music producers from all genres selling their beats and making profits. Find the top 10 best selling producers from your genre and look at how they price their beats. What is the average selling price and what exactly are they offering for that price? This is how you can come up with your “magic number”.

Here are some more guidelines for how you might structure your beat prices.

Exclusive or Not

Among the first things you need to do for each beat that you create is to determine whether you want to license it exclusive or non-exclusive. Exclusive means you will sell the beat to only one buyer. Non-exclusive means you will sell the beat to many. On the surface you might think that the non-exclusive is always better since you can sell it more times, but generally you don’t get to charge as much.

A typical non-exclusive instrumental beat might go for $25-100, while an exclusive beat may go for $300 or more. Now, these are just examples. Your prices will also depend upon your level of experience. My example is for an average non-famous and non-established beat maker/music producer.

Pricing Your Non-exclusive Beats

To make beats for non-exclusive sale is the same as any other type of beat making. In other words you don’t necessarily hold back any of your talent just because you will be charging less. You do need to consider the pricing formula. Price your instrumental too high and you won’t get a lot of sales, price it too low and you won’t make top dollar.

Remember the lower prices will give you more potential customers. This is the tricky part, consider the following three scenarios:

All scenarios yield the same profit, but consider your customer base and competition. If you are the only one in your area making beats for rappers, then $500.00 is probably your price point. If you’re selling beats online as a unknown then $100 to $300 might be more reasonable. On most beat sites your average offer from an artist will range from $10 to $50 maximum.

In addition, when you are starting out, you need to test the waters so price your beat where you feel its fair. If you don’t get any buyers try lowering the price a bit but remember that once you sell your beat under a non-exclusive license you can never sell it exclusively.

Pricing Your Exclusive Beats

To make beats for exclusive sale, you have to be sure that you are willing to let only one person/company use the beat. Most major label artists will never buy a beat that is not exclusive. Generally you might want to start your best beats out as exclusive licenses.

Because the price is higher, your potential amount of customers are lower in number. If it doesn’t sell, you can bump it down to a lower price and/or non-exclusive.

Everyone would love to make a beat and sell it for a lot of money, but the reality is there are a lot of beat makers with the same idea. Eventually all professional beat makers will be selling exclusive licenses only.

Conclusion

When you’re just starting out, be humble and start small. You might even give beats away to rappers or groups you think have big potential to sell a lot of records and downloads. That’s exactly what I had to do in the beginning before I made my first sell. However, having a portfolio of artists performing over my beats gave me instant credibility, because the next customer didn’t know whether I sold them the beat or not. Pretty smart huh?

You might also consider shopping for a deal by sending out the artist’s demo featuring your beats. That could prove to be a win win situation if the record company hears a single that they are willing to put money behind.

The great part is, once you sell your first beat, even if its for $1, you are technically a professional beat maker!

I sincerely hope that this article gave you a solid understanding of how to price your beats the right. Just remember, don’t quit before you make your first sell. It takes time and perseverance, but the great thing is the once you sell your first beat, even if its for $1, you are technically a professional beat maker!

To learn more about how I was able to grew my home studio business into a 6-figure multimedia company, download my FREE ebook “Cracking The Freedom Code”.

Metro Boomin, Sonny Digital, Zaytoven

Noz

What’s going on? Welcome to Red Bull Music Academy. This is one of our first events this month in this fine city. Beatmakers Roundtable. We’re very excited to have three of hip hop’s greatest producers right now, I think, with us … We’re going to get into it with them in a few. Right now, my name is Andrew Noz. I’m going to pass it to my man Torsten, who’s going to break down a little bit about what we do here.

Torsten Schmidt

Good evening. What Andrew hasn’t told you, he’s been with us for a minute, he’s also got a show on RBMA Radio, and he’s been running a blog called Cocaine Blunts for a minute. Any of you out there that do read, that’s the face behind it. Anyone has ever sent him any hate mail? Good.

Noz

Good place to start, yeah.

Torsten Schmidt

That’s a minority of one. You might wonder what this whole academy thing is. Go online, there’s tons of hours of interviews. If you have a night to spend, and you want to know about your favorite producers from all sort of eras, we literally go from 18 to 80 plus. There’s people who invented the synthesizer, people that were there when the fire was invented, when the wheel was rounded, when the person who invented the MPC, and everyone who ever did anything in a genre that we like. Tonight we’re really happy to have these fine gentlemen here. Give them a warm round of applause.

Noz

If anyone doesn’t know, right here to my left we got Zaytoven. You may know him from being one of the main producers behind Gucci Mane’s hot streak. You may know him as a Grammy-award winning artist for his work with Usher. You may know him for his stuff with Migos as well. To his left, we got Sonny Digital, who has produced some enormous hits the past few years. You know, YC and Future “Racks,” Future “Same Damn Time,” Makonnen “Tuesdays.” Just has an illustrious discography we’re going to get into in a few. Last on the end, we got Metro Boomin. A tremendous young talent who you may have heard on Kanye West’s album, you may have heard executive producing projects for the likes of Future and Drake. Also, I think a lot of these guys also come from the same pool of producing for Gucci, Young Thug, just this network of super-talented Atlanta artists.

Let’s jump into it with that. Atlanta seems to be like the hotbed for producing rap music, and has been for a good part of a decade. What is it about the city that make you guys do what you do?

Zaytoven

I feel the reason why the city Atlanta’s been so on fire for so long is because the city has so much flavor to it. You got a lot of young guys … I mean from dressing to loose slang and lingo, and stuff like that. That’s where all our style comes from. Atlanta, that’s what we breed. Atlanta can be everything. Atlanta can do crunk music, it can do snap music, it can do swag music. Atlanta has it all. I think that’s the reason why we’ve been on top for so long.

Noz

Now, you’re originally from the West Coast, correct?

Zaytoven

I was born in Germany.

Torsten Schmidt

Yes. Ja wurde hier.

Zaytoven

My dad was in the military so I really moved all my life. The reason I say I’m from the West Coast is because that’s where I spent all my high school years. That’s where I feel like I got all my game from, that’s where I learned the majority of things I know now. That’s why I say I’m from the West.

Noz

I think backstage we had asked you which record you’re proudest of, and you told us…

Zaytoven

“So Icy.” That’s the song that got me in the game man, so I’m always going to proud of that.

Noz

What was the vibe in Atlanta when you did that record with Gucci and Jeezy?

Zaytoven

The vibe was totally different. If you listen to the song, the song doesn’t sound like it come from Atlanta. Sound like it come from the West Coast. It comes from me working with a guy like Gucci, who felt like I could do no wrong. Every beat I make, everything I do is … “Hey Zay, I love everything you do. Everything Zay do is hard.” I made a West Coast beat because I’m coming from the West Coast. This is the type of music I was accustomed to. It was what I was listening to. Being that Gucci loved everything I do, he don’t got no choice because it’s at my studio, so … You got to like the beat. That’s why … That’s how “So Icy” came about. I think it kind of changed the climate of the music at that time.

Noz

Let’s give it a listen for those of you who haven’t had the chance to hear this.

Torsten Schmidt

So what was the environment like when you made that beat?

Zaytoven

It was like this. The story behind it is, I was working with Gucci Mane everyday. I was the barber … I was at the barbershop cutting hair. He called me like, “Hey man, Young Jeezy want to do a song with us.” At the time, I didn’t really know who Young Jeezy was, but Gucci keep his ear to the streets. He know what was hot and who was next.

I’m like, “All right cool. I’m going to come to the house.” I went to the house, this was at my mom’s basement. I made the beat in like 5 minutes, we got to hurry up and get to the studio, because Gucci said Jeezy going to do a song with us. I made the beat in 5 minutes. We already had the hook and stuff together.

So we went down to the studio, and I remember singing it, or he was singing it for Young Jeezy. Then we played him the beat. It was like, “All right. That’s cool. Ain’t nothing else. Y’all got nothing else?” At the time, Gucci was like, “Uh, nah man. Zay put on another beat then. Do something else.” At the time, I don’t want to say I was arrogant, but my feelings were hurt in a way, to the point where like, “Oh he don’t like my beat?” I told Gucci, “No. Let’s do the song we came down here to do.”

Yeah. You guys got to do the song we came down here to do. I didn’t know who Young Jeezy was. I didn’t know he was big as he was. So I was like we going to do the song … You know what I mean, that we said we going to do. Before you know it, everybody that was in that studio had a pencil and a pad out trying to write to get on the song. You could tell it was going to be a hit, because everybody that … People that weren’t even a part of the session were like, “Hey man, can I … I got a verse with that. Let me put a verse on the …”

Torsten Schmidt

Who’s the one in that moment that is conducting and saying like, “You … No … Maybe … You … No.” How does that work? Who makes the decision on who actually gets on the cut?

Zaytoven

It was really me and Gucci at the time. Gucci valued my opinion so much. That’s why I respect Gucci so much, because he was like, “Zay what you think?” Because he was finna rap a verse he already had, and I’m like, “Nah you got to do something brand new for this.” You know what I mean? It was really me and Gucci at the time. Of course, we was down there to do the song with Jeezy, so he’s on there. There was a guy by the name of Lil Will that can sing real good. He end up singing the hook, because Gucci was singing it but it didn’t sound … It wouldn’t sound as good if he did it. “Nah, Lil Will you get in here and sing it.” Then the guy Boo from Boo & Gotti, he was there. He had a name, so we’re like, “Aite he can get on it.” You know what I mean?

Noz

That was one of the first uses of auto-tune that I remember in hip hop.

Zaytoven

It was that, and right following behind that it was T-Pain “Sprung.” It was kind of like right at the same time.

Noz

Where’d you guys get that idea?

Zaytoven

The mixer. The mixer’s name was Josh Butler. We was mixing the song. You know how the vocals kind of… they’re off tune just a little bit? So he added some auto-tune, and the more he added, I’m like, “Yeah I like that, that sounds good.” We just kept it. Was nobody using auto-tune before that. That helped create the sound, it felt good and that’s how it went.

Torsten Schmidt

We’re talking about making a name for yourself, or having the name, but a second ago you also said you were just cutting hair at a barbershop. How did that transition go? I guess Gucci was not driving around to all the barbershops, going like, “Hey, yo, who’s got a beat?”

Zaytoven

No. Gucci was the guy … He was coming around. I was the new guy that was from out of town and had a studio in the basement. He was the guy that started trying to get into music. He started coming over every day, so we doing songs with each other. For me it was for the fun of it. I never thought about making it in the music industry. I didn’t make beats to try to make it … You know, be a big producer. It was just something I enjoyed doing. I think Gucci looked at it as in, “This is a way I’m going to make some money. This going to be my career.” We was recording with each other every day. That was our just breakout song.

I was cutting hair years after Icy came out. I thought it was a luck. I thought, “man that’s a accident boy” I ain’t … That was a good accident. I made a big song, but I don’t think it’s going to happen again. But I constantly kept doing music, because that’s what I loved to do. So the songs kept coming, and I started getting bigger.

Torsten Schmidt

What did you use at that time to do the music?

Zaytoven

As far as producing?

Torsten Schmidt

Yeah

Zaytoven

I’m a hardware guy. To this day I still use hardware. I had the MPC 2000 XL, and I just had the Triton keyboard. That’s all I used on that right there.

Noz

You can really play the piano. Can’t you?

Zaytoven

I’m a church musician. Right now, when I leave here tomorrow, I got to be up at church on the organ in the morning.

Noz

Wow. How does that-

Torsten Schmidt

On a gospel chops kind of level, do you go and hang out on that side…

Zaytoven

That’s what got me into music period. From a young child, my dad’s a preacher, my momma is a choir director. So you in church all the time. Three, four days out of the week. So you looking for something to do. That’s how I started learning to play the organ. That’s the reason I’m even in music.

Noz

What do churchgoers think of your other life? Making beats?

Zaytoven

You know what? I almost was ashamed of it for a while. Like, “Dang, I don’t want them to know.” You know, that I do this, and certain people do know. A lot of the churches I play for, a lot of the pastors I be close with them. We be friends. They’re always telling … They’ll be proud of me. He might get up in the pulpit and say y’all … “Zaytoven, our organist, he just produced Gucci Mane’s new…” I’m like, “Man, why would you say that? Don’t tell ‘em that.”

Torsten Schmidt

Does he go as far as saying the next time you’re sinning in a strip joint, that’s what you’re listening to, your church…

Zaytoven

Nah, nah. We don’t really get into detail like that. It’s good to have even the people in church support what I do, because I still carry and conduct myself a certain way. I believe in God and things like that, I still choose to live my life a certain way. I don’t really step outside of that. Music … I don’t know why God put me in to be the trap king of music when I’m an organist at the church but, you know, I’m going with it.

Noz

Cool. Let’s run it down the line. Mr. Digital.

Sonny Digital

What’s going on? Hey! You dig? What’s up, bro?

Noz

You were born and raised in Atlanta.

Sonny Digital

No, I was born in Saginaw, Michigan. Clap it up.

Torsten Schmidt

The Midwest seems to be in the…

Sonny Digital

I was born there, I was raised in Atlanta.

Noz

About what age did you head south?

Sonny Digital

After I was born. I was literally just born there. I got family there. My grandparents, they still there. I don’t know. Older people for real.

Noz

You were around … I mean born into this world of fully formed Atlanta hip hop. The stuff Zaytoven was making was when you were a little kid.

Sonny Digital

Yeah, I came through the Atlanta way definitely. Like I said, I was raised in Atlanta, I was just born in Michigan, that was it.

Noz

What are your memories of the music in that era?

Sonny Digital

When?

Npz

What are your earliest memories of music?

Sonny Digital

I remember just listening to music first, probably like everybody else, I was raised just listening to it. Then I got the actual … I don’t know what it was, it was something like a MPC, then I just started messing with that. I was young, when you young and you start doing something, it usually starts out as a hobby. I was just doing it for fun. It went from me listening to it to me trying to put it together myself, and to me actually doing it to it becoming a career.

Noz

You say it like it’s so simple but how did you make that leap?

Sonny Digital

Like I said, I started when I was young. It wasn’t like I took a leap, it was just I just started doing it as a hobby. It wasn’t a job for me, it was something I just liked doing.

Torsten Schmidt

MPC is not a normal household appliance.

Sonny Digital

It wasn’t an MPC, you right, but it was something similar to it, it was something that put out the sounds with kicks and claps. I don’t know what it was but it was something.

Torsten Schmidt

Whose unit was that?

Sonny Digital

I don’t really remember how it got there.

Torsten Schmidt

That sounds like there’s a rather good story.

Sonny Digital

I really don’t remember how it got there but it was there. I remember this song that we made, it was my big brother, my cousins and everything, I made the beat. That’s crazy. That was the first time … That was early traces of me being a producer because then I was really just doing it for fun. I’d probably do something like that and then go play or something. Later on down the line that’s when it came back in my life again.

Noz

Tell us a little bit about this record I’m about to play, your first breakout hit.

Sonny Digital

Yeah, “Racks on Racks,” that’s the first breakout hit. Yeah, appreciate it. No, it was the first one, that was a real bumpy road for me too, that record was crazy because a lot of people didn’t know … I had my tag back then though, but then I didn’t put it in there, and that was my fault. It fucked it up for me bad because I had to go back and rebuild it up. That was a big record, a breakthrough record. It was a lot with that record but it was a blessing and a curse. It was more of a blessing because it opened up the doors for me to do more things.

Noz

You specifically requested that we play the instrumental, why is that?

Sonny Digital

Only… You can play the regular one but I’ve just been listening to the song for so long. You can play it for them. You can play the regular one for them. I’ve been on the road too. Yeah.

Metro Boomin

Bro, I used to try to make so many beats like that because that shit came out. I used to sit at home like, “Damn, how this nigga be doing this?”

Sonny Digital

Man, this shit crazy. Yeah.

Noz

You didn’t even want me to play the vocal version and then you were like, “I need to hear the second verse.”

Sonny Digital

Look, even when I do be performing it … When you’re performing it’s different, you got to get in and out, I don’t even really get to the good part sometimes.

Metro Boomin

You got to make a version where you swap Future and YC verses.

Sonny Digital

I know.

Metro Boomin

You being funny but I’m serious.

Sonny Digital

His verse got more reaction to it.

Metro Boomin

His verse is when niggers go crazy.

Noz

For a lot of folks that was their introduction to Future.

Sonny Digital

Yeah, to Future, me and YC. That’s why I feel like that song was a blessing and a curse, because it was so much newness coming through the door at one time. Almost too much.

Noz

With Future did you, at that point, see him getting as big as he’s become?

Sonny Digital

I don’t know. I was just working. It wasn’t like we was just … It was an ultimate goal with it. I was really just working with who wanted to work with me. We had just came off of “Racks” and let’s just keep on working, it only makes sense. It got both our names hotter. It was cool, it just made sense.

Torsten Schmidt

The way you get into the lyrics of the songs, and obviously you have overseeable influence on them, do you ever sit in the studio and go, “Don’t be saying that over my beat?”

Sonny Digital

It depends on who it is. As far as with Future, ever since the beginning I just let him do what he did. We really was … We sent stuff through the emails and stuff, that’s how we was working, because everything we was making was just coming back gold. Boom, golden, coming back to me. I sent him something, he sent me something back … I ain’t got to go all the way to the studio, I send you a package, you just hit me all this good stuff back. We good. Then I could stay back at home and just keep on making them too, that’s how much we was working. Same formula today.

Torsten Schmidt

He would be working, recording his own vocal takes, and just sent you the vocals?

Sonny Digital

No, I would send the beats off to him, and they’ll record to them, and they’ll come out. I send some more … It would just be the same process. It was the same thing that we doing today. It ain’t like I’m doing as much, but it’s still the same process.

Noz

All right.

Sonny Digital

Yeah.

Noz

Metro, how’s it going down there?

Metro Boomin

I’m great, I’m blessed. How are you doing?

Noz

Not bad. You come from the Midwest originally?

Metro Boomin

Yeah, St. Louis, Missouri, born and raised.

Noz

Now tell us a little bit about the music that you came up listening to there.

Metro Boomin

When I was growing up … Do all these sound like this? Can I see what that sound like real quick? Hello? All right, cool.

Growing up, St. Louis, it was a lot of crazy stuff going on when I was growing up, good stuff music wise. Nelly was dropping a whole bunch of crazy stuff, you had Murphy Lee, then you had Chingy, J Kwon, you had all these things that people might laugh at now but those were really high selling huge hits back then. Even with all that coming out of where I was from and where I was, you got to imagine the time at the city it was just so influential. It was at that point Nelly dropped “Country Grammar,” and I knew I wanted to be in music just at that point.

Noz

Now, with that in mind, how did you end up going south?

Metro Boomin

I would often come to Atlanta in high school, it was 11th or 12th grade, I would come down to Atlanta and just work in the studio, just go in with people, people I had met offline. I already knew that once I graduated high school I wanted to move to Atlanta. I moved there for college.

Torsten Schmidt

That wasn’t just any college, right?

Metro Boomin

Yeah, I went to Morehouse for a semester.

Torsten Schmidt

That was a big thing.

Metro Boomin

It was huge, even for my whole family, my mom, everything. Wow, Morehouse. That was a big …

Noz

That brings us to the record you’ve asked us to play. Why was this record in particular significant to your Morehouse experience?

Metro Boomin

I’m going to say this one was real significant to my Morehouse experience because it came out when I was still in school. This song was released and things just started changing, not drastic changes or anything compared to now or anything like that, but it was still a little momentum type thing.

Noz

Did the students know? Were they like, “That’s the guy that did” …

Metro Boomin

I was real low-key but I made beats in my dorm, so I had speakers set up, niggas were here, niggas would just know, yeah, “there’s Leland, he make beats” or whatever. Some people started to get the clue when a couple songs came out and they wouldn’t see me that much. I had to stop going altogether. That’s when they had realized.

Noz

Yeah, what’s this joint called?

Metro Boomin

“Karate Chop,” by Future.

Noz

That’s a record that’s ridiculously hard. A brutal record.

Metro Boomin

Man, that’s crazy, because I didn’t really like it at first when it was done. It’s just crazy how that stuff turns out. As I learned through my career, that’s how a lot of stuff be.

Noz

When you’re working on a song like that with Future, do you just pass him the beat and be like, “Go for it,” or does he have an idea in his head that you help him execute?

Metro Boomin

Really, with Future, we go to the studio, we load up beats, and he just attacks them. We put them in a folder and he starts from the bottom and just does them all. Or if I’m not with him, like Sonny said, just email, email, and he’ll call you back, “All right, I did all those, I need more, I need more, I need more.” It’s crazy.

Noz

It seems like with a song like that, in my head, there’s that and there was Mike Will’s “Shit,” “Covered N Money” by Sonny Digital where the intensity of the songs you guys were making just went up 10 notches. Is that something you guys were working towards, or is that just natural?

Metro Boomin

It’s natural. Just as producers, always being all over the place with it and with our sounds, Future, he always going to try whatever. He’s not scared of anything. He records and makes so much music, it’s ridiculous how much. You might hear “Shit” and “Covered N Money” or something like that on an album and think, “This is what he was on right now,” but one of those could’ve been from two years ago. Anything. That’s just what fit this project and what was chosen.

Noz

How does that feel on your end to … Are there records that get orphaned in the process that you wish the world could hear?

Metro Boomin

Yeah, that happens. It’s just when we put them out, or put them on something. It’s all about timing, man. Even when “March Madness” came out this past year, that was originally … when we were putting “Monster” together, that was one of the songs … We had that way back then. That was one of the songs we were debating on but didn’t make the cut. Everything happens for a reason, and it made more sense way later during everything, Black Lives Matter, March. It was just a better moment. It’s really about moments.

Noz

One of the things that’s really nice having the three of you on the couch is seeing … You guys look like family, like you’ve known each other forever.

Metro Boomin

Yeah, I love them.

Noz

I think that’s something that speaks to the city you come from, the vibe I get is that it’s very community oriented, it’s not just, “Here’s this guy, this guy over here.” You guys are all in each other’s lives in a way. How does that push the music forward?

Metro Boomin

I believe a lot in vibes. How I got with music is really, I like to make music with people who I vibe well with. I’d rather make music with my actual friends, like Sonny Digital, or Zaytoven. Even the vibe, everything’s organic, and you just get the craziest stuff, the best stuff that way. A lot of … In the music industry, it’s a lot of stuff that’s manufactured hits. The label will be like, “Yo, we got this producer, we got the beat. They wrote this on this last album, so they’re going to write the song.” Just a whole bunch of stuff. I’m really more on the organic tip.

Noz

Sonny, you played an instrumental role in Metro’s early career, correct?

Sonny Digital

Correct.

Noz

Can you guys speak on that a little?

Sonny Digital

Yeah. What you want to know?

Noz

How did you meet?

Sonny Digital

First, Metro, he used to be online like heavy though. He used to hit me a lot, though, I ain’t going to lie. I wasn’t big at all. I was just working, I was still working towards getting through the door. I didn’t even know him like that though, but I didn’t know him so I kept him at bay.

Metro Boomin

I was bothering him. A lot. I had bothered a lot of people via Twitter in high school, just to send beats and shit like that.

Sonny Digital

It was cool. We actually collabed a long time ago. We did how many, probably two beats.

Metro Boomin

It was two beats.

Sonny Digital

A long time ago. We had never even met each other before, though. He had came down to Atlanta. I forgot, how’d you come over to my house?

Metro Boomin

I was hanging with Chip, and Chip picked me up from school and brought me over there one day.

Sonny Digital

Yeah, that was crazy, man. It was like, “Yeah, that’s my boy.” We were crazy. We just stayed together forever. That shit was crazy. I don’t know. He was always just working. He was almost like a little brother, working hard, more inspiration to work. It was fun, too. We just had parties.

Metro Boomin

Yeah, I used to live with Sonny. We used to have these crazy parties. We’d just make music all day, have about … It was the town house that had two levels, so at any given moment, it’d be 15 people in the house. Just on some regular shit. If it was a function, it would be out of control. It was good days.

Sonny Digital

Yeah.

Torsten Schmidt

How do you maintain that vibe once you get called to New York, Los Angeles or whatever, and people go, “We want some of that.”

Sonny Digital

What you mean?

Torsten Schmidt

That communal spirit.

Sonny Digital

Oh, like how we move?

Torsten Schmidt

No. The second that gets successful, people will go, “Oh, I want some of that.” Then they fly you out and you’re like, “It’s not the same.”

Sonny Digital

Oh, fly us out to work.

Metro Boomin

Tell them niggas come to Atlanta.

Sonny Digital

Yeah, they got to come to Atlanta. They got to come to us if they want to work. Another thing too, hey look… Zay too, Zay plays a very vital part. We all been to Zay crib. Everybody been to Zay crib.

Metro Boomin

Zay crib!

Sonny Digital

For real. Nicki Minaj, everybody. You got to go through Zay crib to make sure that you get through the game.

Metro Boomin

You don’t make it to Zay crib, you ain’t nowhere. You ain’t making it.

Sonny Digital

For real. His crib is very vital in the community. The community of Atlanta, if Zay moved from Atlanta, it would probably end it. It ain’t no foundation no more. Once I hear about my niggas making it to Zaytoven’s crib, I feel a lot more comfortable. I feel like, “Okay. We good.”

Metro Boomin

People really got to understand, because everybody talk about all this, “Atlanta this, Atlanta that,” and so fascinated, but really, Zay the godfather. Just flat out.

Sonny Digital

On everything. He is. Even the way we sitting on the couch is weird, he came through to me, then him. He birthed all of us, for real. We all derived…

Metro Boomin

In that order. Then it’s going to be somebody else next. Find somebody. For real, Zaytoven, you got to understand how crazy it is because … Let me think. “So Icy”, “Black Tee”, all that type of shit, when I started listen to Gucci Mane, all that stuff came out when I was in the 5th grade. That’s 2005, 2004. It’s 2016, and he’s even more relevant.

You got to think a lot of producers, no names, we don’t do none of that. Even all the producers that were hot, or even hot around Atlanta or whatever producing alongside Zay, a lot of his peers from back then, he’s outlived all of them. That’s big in itself. He’s still here. He’s here with us, he’s going to be here.

Sonny Digital

For real. Real G.O.A.T. For real.

Metro Boomin

Real G.O.A.T. Goat emoji.

Noz

How do you respond to these comments?

Zaytoven

Let me see. First of all, it make me feel old. When he said the fifth grade, I’m like “Wait a minute, the fifth grade?” It definitely puts a smile on my face to get that from the hottest producers in the game right now. These are the guys that make me go home and say “Hold on man, I got to start back going hard. I got to make some more beats.”

I’m competitive with this music. It’s good for everybody, “Zay going hard, Zay the truth.” Then you start listening to people asking about Sonny Digital, then “I need some Metro.” It’s like, “Wait a minute, hold on, what you mean? You don’t need me no more?” They looking for them.

Metro Boomin

That’s how it be.

Zaytoven

That’s how it be. They make me go home and get on my game. They the guys that really keep me relevant. These two guys in particular, there’s been a lot of producers that came out that had a nice run and did real good, but these guys right now is what keeps my fire burning. Keeps me competitive.

Metro Boomin

Appreciate you.

Zaytoven

Yes, sir.

Sonny Digital

Vice versa.

Zaytoven

For real.

Sonny Digital

I think I might’ve been the first producer to collab with Zaytoven, too. It’s crazy.

Zaytoven

Sonny came to my house. I got a studio at the house. I got maybe three keyboards, two drum machines, all type of equipment in my studio. Sonny come over with a laptop. No keyboard, no drum machine, no nothing. He’s like, “Yeah, we’re supposed to just collab on something.” I’m like, “How we gonna do it? You ain’t got no equipment.” That’s what really threw me off. I’m like, “they making beats?” It blows my mind what they do and how they do it.

Sonny Digital

Brought that Fruity Loops over there. It was crazy. I remember Mike Fresh, Mike Fresh brought me over. It was cool though. We never put the beats out, though. I just enjoyed just having the Zaytoven approval, I was like “shit, man, I’m in there. I’m at the house now.” I already knew what it was.

Noz

What exactly is the process when Sonny comes over to your house, do you have a drum track rolling?

Zaytoven

Now when we collab, when I collab with both of them, I almost let them lead. They might say, “Zay, here, I got this. I got this drum track, or I got these sounds.” Then I go in and start adding my two cents. I like to go and add sounds from hardware, something that’s totally different than what they use, so it’ll give it a unique sound.

Noz

Do you guys… are you always comfortable with passing your beat out to someone else?

Zaytoven

So far as like between us producers?

Noz

Yeah.

Zaytoven

I’m always comfortable. To me, I be feeling like, what can it hurt? If I send out some beats to Metro or Sonny to do, they going to do it and I really don’t even care who they give it to. They can give it to their friend who can’t rap, I don’t care. I’m doing beats with Sonny and Metro. I don’t really care. When I send it to them, I feel 100% good about it.

Torsten Schmidt

How do you work out the business end of that in the end? At some stage, some lawyer will sit there and go, “Okay, what is the writing split on this?”

Metro Boomin

We don’t worry about none of that shit. These my brothers, man. Everything always down the middle. Always. I don’t care if a nigga put one kick in it. You put one kick, you get 50%.

Sonny Digital

We ain’t got no time to be going back and forth. Like we said, we all friends too. If one person got a problem, then it holds up everybody’s money too. Just keep it smart. Everything fair down the middle. That’s just being real, too. I just fuck with these niggas, too, that’s the only way to do it. They said, “I don’t care if a nigga put a clap in that mother fucker, shit. You good, come on, get in here.” Get in there.

Metro Boomin

Run the publishing up.

Torsten Schmidt

How does that work once a beat leaves your tight unit and you got to deal with the outside world and people have come in with a different mindset? Is that when the process gets slower? Or-

Sonny Digital

What’d you say?

Torsten Schmidt

Let’s say you send a beat to someone else. And someone else that’s not from your group is adding to it –

Metro Boomin

No. I won’t fuck with that.

Sonny Digital

It don’t get that far. That’s like infiltrating what we’re doing. You don’t do that. It don’t get that far. I respect this shit too much to even like let anybody else hear what –

Metro Boomin

Way too much.

Sonny Digital

You know what I’m saying? I’m like, “Dang. This nigger just sent me some fire, nigger. I might not even send this to Metro.” You hear what I’m saying. For real. I already know what he’s saying. He’s saying, he’s sending everybody this shit. He’s going to make sure all of it was good. When I get the pack I know Metro getting the pack too. You know what I’m saying?

Metro Boomin

Yeah. Zay is going to send them out. Or he’ll add on to a beat or idea. Zay the type of person I can call on and be like, “Man. This song, man it’s kind of ugh.” He’s just going to go and make it happen and just put something on there. Or put the right thing on there and it’s going to bring it to life. That’s another way that we all utilize each other because everybody’s brain and mind is different. I might be in front of a song like, “Man, this shit is almost there but I just can’t … You know what I’m saying. Or Sonny, what you think?” Or send it to Zay.

Zay the type of person, every time I send him anything he send it back in an hour or less. I’m like, “Man, he must keep keyboards with him.” He’s sending it right back. It’s ridiculous. I’ve never had anybody, in the music industry, you ask them to do anything and they send it right back, as fast as Zay.

Noz

That brings us to something else I want to ask you guys about which is … It seems like you all work at a tremendous pace. How do you sustain that?

Sonny Digital

It’s easy to do when you work together. It’s like three people working. When all three of us working, it make it easier for each one of us to work too. I guess that’s how …

Metro Boomin

Just staying inspired. My bad, what did you say Zay?

Zaytoven

Yo. Is this mic on? I know for me, there’s so much music coming out everyday. That almost means that we have to make beats everyday just to stay relevant and keep the attention on us. I got a regimen. I got wife and kids so, it’s different for me. I kind of go to bed early when I can and I get up early. When I get up in the morning, I might take my kids to school, then I might make five, ten beats. I don’t even care what they sound like, I’m just making them. Nowadays, you don’t know what could be a hit or what somebody’s going to write a hit to so I’m just making beats, over and over and over again. Some of them might sound alike, some of them might not be that good but that’s what keeps us in the game. That’s what keeps me going. That’s how we keep up. That’s how I keep up. That’s how I have tried to keep up with these guys.

Noz

That’s a seven day week?

Zaytoven

That’s really seven days a week.

Torsten Schmidt

Minus the church.

Zaytoven

Yup. Well Sundays, I get inspired more on Sundays. I go to church, play organ, then come home take a nap and I’m up. Now I’m ready to make some beats.

Torsten Schmidt

How deep are you actually involved in the actual tracking of the vocals and then all the post-production with the vocals?

Metro Boomin

I’m sorry. One more time.

Torsten Schmidt

How deep are you involved in the production of the vocals and the tracking? Then doing all the post-production of the vocals?

Metro Boomin

Yeah, yeah. Definitely like to get into all that. Originally it wasn’t always like that for me. I didn’t even know all the way how to navigate or … That fluent in Pro Tools at all until I was living with Sonny and I was watching everybody on Pro Tools. Watching Sonny on Pro Tools, Migos, everybody or whatever rapping and recording on Pro Tools so that’s when I start picking up the game. Now, I’m into all the vocal production. Every song I do, no matter what, got to be in on the post-production. Everything, so it’s great. Even post-production wise, like, uh, what was that? “3500” with Travis Scott, that was a song we had, we’d been working on for a while and we were coming down to the wire to release it. I was just like, “Man. It’s missing something.” Sent the session to Zay and he sent it right back with all the perfect parts. It’s just things like that. You can always take a song to the next level.

Torsten Schmidt

You must have terabytes with ad-libs lying around the house, right?

Metro Boomin

All kinds of stuff.

Noz

Leaks.

Metro Boomin

Oh no. No leaks. No leaks over here. We keep it tight.

Noz

One of the things I want to talk to you guys about is, I guess the word that most commonly comes up in reference to your music is trap music. That seems to mean many things to different people at this point. Just briefly break down what it means to you all.

Zaytoven

Trap music to me, to me it means, it’s really hustling music. A lot of times when people talk about trap, or where the word I think that kind of comes from the music, it might be a place of selling, illegal, drugs or something like that. To me a trap can be anything. A trap can be your job. Me cutting hair at the barbershop was my trap. That’s how I was making my money. I think music that we make to go along with it is just the soundtrack of somebody hustling. Hustling real hard to make their money.

When I thought about trap, the reason why I feel the trap music that I started making with Gucci and OJ and those type of guys was different is because when I think of trap, I think of something that’s unrehearsed, it’s something’s that edgy, not too well put together. So the music that we was making, the music that you was talking about that you listen to in your fifth grade, it means that we were in there making songs that we wasn’t trying to make perfect. If you’re talking about robbing somebody and selling dope and all that type of stuff, it’s not supposed to sound too clean or everything sound so perfect, then people won’t get the real feeling behind what you’re saying.

If you listen to my early music – I didn’t know how to mix, I barely knew how to record for real and I didn’t care. It’s like, “Okay. I think what he’s saying is hard and the beat is hard.” So I got the drums up too loud. Gucci man might be saying something. You don’t know what he talking about. I don’t even know what he’s saying but we going to keep it. Keep it like that. To me, that’s what trap music was. It was dirty, it had a real, dirty edgy feel to it. To me that’s what trap is. Now, you know, trap is EDM music too.

Noz

How do you guys feel about it going from this grimy, unique Atlanta thing to being a global phenomenon that sometimes doesn’t even acknowledge what it started as?

Zaytoven

I think it’s progression. I think trap is its own genre of music now. It’s amazing that people have really dug so deep in to the trap music that we made, that was so ugly and dirty and not well put together and made such this big thing. Like we say now, it’s almost dance music now. You got trap EDM. That’s big. That’s big for trap music for me because we never thought people would even listen to it like that. We’re making this for the guys around the neighborhood and it did turn into such a big thing so I think it’s progression.

Noz

Sonny or Metro, you have anything to add on this topic?

Sonny Digital

Trap to me was more like a hood symphony. That’s what it was. It was like he said a soundtrack to like them, your life if you was doing something and you wanted to be motivated. A big part was like that trap or die, like I was telling you upstairs. That trap or die was a big part in it. To me that’s what it was. It wasn’t so much like … It was more like motivational music, even though he was talking about selling drugs though, it just made you want to do something though. I feel trap music is damn near motivational music though. For real. It makes you want to do something. Thug motivation for real. It make you want to get up and do some stuff.

Noz

It’s interesting because I think, sonically, the stuff Zay does, doesn’t necessarily sound like the stuff you do.

Sonny Digital

Nah, Nah, nah. I can’t do that though because Zay has his own sound. Zay literally got his own lane and if you try to make anything that sounds remotely close to his, you will know. And I know him too so it’s like, man, if I feel I need to do something like Zay, I’m gon call this man. That’s what makes sense and I know he’s going to look out for me. You know what I’m saying? It’s how that go.

Noz

Are there other scenes that influenced what’s going on in Atlanta right now, what’s the pre-history of all this?

Sonny Digital

For me, it just kind of came from when I was listening to everything he was doing and Shorty-red and Drumma and all that stuff. That’s where I came from. The way we sitting on the couch kind of describes it all. From his point, I came from him and after that Metro came after that. I was really looking up to all the stuff he was doing, all the stuff Shorty-red was doing, Drumma was doing. Toomp. Everybody. And he was in Atlanta too. Fatboy. Everybody was in Atlanta too so it was cool to me. That’s where I stem from.

I think it’s better if he tells you where he stem from, because he came from the West coast too. That was cool. He came from St. Louis so I think it’s cool where they came from too.

Zaytoven

Where it came from for me was just … It was more so lifestyle. You be around a guy like Gucci man, which is the guy that he rap about. When I make music, I make music according to how I feel about this guy right here. If I feel like this guy would rob you, then that’s the type of music I would make that fits the way he rap and how he is. Now I was listening to Young Jeezy and Shorty-red … To me the trap music they had was something special. That’s what I started listening like, “Man, they got something special.” That was almost the competition that me and Gucci was looking at like, “Okay, we have to do something that’s better than them.” What we did was something totally different. I think the sound that they had. Their trap music was real theatrical. It sounded serious.

Metro Boomin

Cinematic.

Zaytoven

Yeah. Cinematic. It had that real big cinematic sound to it. What me and Gucci was doing, it was almost like, I’m playing the keys, you got flutes and organs and it just sound like, “This ain’t trap music.” When I start add dirty bass drums to it then he talking about what he talking about but in a funny way. He had charisma so I think the trap music that we did was something totally different. Our songs ain’t mixed. He talking about stuff that sometimes don’t make no sense. It was entertaining in a different way but you could tell by the words that this guy is saying and the way he looks and his lifestyle that, “Ok he’s one of those guys for real. He probably sell drugs for real.” That’s our version of the trap music.

Torsten Schmidt

As far as not understanding what people are saying, how do you feel when you hear trap being done in Austria. You just been to England and France and Germany and all those places. You got people that get really big and have platinum records in a different language that sonically really are inspired by what you guys do.

Zaytoven

Like I said, I think it’s real progression. I can’t believe that somebody that far away even paid attention to the music that we do. I do a thing called Producer Camp now. In my first one I had a guy fly out from Nigeria because they really in tune to the music that we do. That’s crazy to me. I think it’s big progression. I think we have the strongest sounding music out today. Trap music is.

Torsten Schmidt

Speaking of producer camp, you are rumored to have learned quite a bit off the internet, right?

Metro Boomin

Yeah.

Torsten Schmidt

What were your sources? Where did you look to?

Metro Boomin

Really, when I first got on FruityLoops, I got in, my boy was showing me some shit then I’d be online just looking at all kinds of stuff. Google and stuff, you know and then it was some of that but I’m not going to sit here and say it was too much of that. Really, a lot of it was just exploring, and trial and error type thing. Just trying whatever. Going through everything. There’s a lot of stuff in the program. After that, in high school, I took a semester of piano lessons. I don’t play fluently, or nothing like that. At that point, it showed me a lot about music theory, and a whole bunch of stuff that I knew nothing about before. Like, nothing completely about.

Even before that, I didn’t even really know what a chord was. You know what I’m saying? That did a lot, too. After that, it was just a lot more exploring with that really. The sky’s the limit.

Torsten Schmidt

Somewhere earlier it was said that you bothered people online a fair bit. I guess now you’re in the seat that people start bothering you, right?

Metro Boomin

A little bit.

Torsten Schmidt

Do you feel that that experience of having been there in those shoes makes you deal with it a little bit more graciously?

Metro Boomin

No doubt, definitely, man. I come across kids and all kinds of stuff everyday. I’m just so grateful for it. I just want to inspire them the way I was inspired to start doing what I’m doing. I’m real grateful for that. I feel like by me being one of those kids before, I approach all those kids a different way. You know I’m saying? Really, make them feel loved.

Torsten Schmidt

At the same time, you’ve got a day job, and if you were just out there doing a producer’s clinic by email, you could be doing nothing else.

Metro Boomin

Yeah, not even that but … I’m sorry, what?

Torsten Schmidt

I’m just saying, where do you keep the balance of doing what you’re actually doing, but still feeling like they’re heard.

Metro Boomin

I do a lot of shows and stuff now. That’s when I get to really see and connect with a lot of those people, and make them feel good, because they make me feel good, at the end of the day.

Noz

What do you think? Should we listen to some more music?

Metro Boomin

No. I’m just playing.

Noz

Everybody go home. Any suggestions?

Torsten Schmidt

I guess before we go to the music, earlier on when you said that music sounded so hard, I think that’s something where every young producer struggles because they’ve got this idea in their head, and whatever they’re playing back to themselves just doesn’t sound that well.

Metro Boomin

Oh, man. I went through that for so long, bro, like so many years. I’ll be making beats, and then in my head, I’d be like, “Man, this shit crazy.” But then, in reality, it wasn’t.

Torsten Schmidt

Trust me. I know that feeling, yeah.

Metro Boomin

Then, it didn’t help me because I had my mom lying to me all the time, talking about “this shit hard.” I would just be telling her, “Like man, keep it real.” She was like, “No, it’s crazy.” She just love me so much, I know she really thought that in her head. I listen to a lot of that stuff from back then, and be like, “Whoa.” It’s incredible just how far away it’s crazy. I can’t even explain.

Torsten Schmidt

How do you get closer?

Metro Boomin

Really, just working at it, man. Putting in more hours. People don’t understand. I was 13 when I started making beats, and from there I was slaving. Like, literally slaving. Like every single day I’d go to sleep making beats. I would wake up making beats. Even before I went to school, I’d wake up a little early to just finish some shit from yesterday. As soon as I come home, not really into homework like that, we making beats. You know what I’m saying? Just everything.

It’s really about that dedication, and just like, if you want to be in the NBA, and you’re in high school, you’re going to need to shoot around everyday to build your skill. It’s really the same thing. If you do the same thing for so long, after so many times, you can’t help but, it’s going to have to progress, or else, what are you doing? It’s going to get better. It’s just off how hard you work, and if it’s not getting better, then you’re just not working hard enough.

Noz

Metro, I’m not going to put you on blast, but I did find what I believe to be your childhood YouTube channel.

Metro Boomin

Oh, wow.

Noz

Tell me if I’m wrong. There’s a remix of Gucci “Bandana” on there.

Metro Boomin

Yeah, I had the Soulja Boy, I had the Gucci “Bandana” remix. I had remade that beat. What else is on there? I know there is a few of them. Don’t pull it up. I might have had a verse on there rapping, too.

Noz

We’ll leave it at that, but my point is, it seems like that’s where a lot of people are starting now, is they’re rebuilding the tracks that they’re listening to.

Metro Boomin

Yeah, I did that a lot back then. It’s like an exercise type thing, or maybe I could do that. How I would do that. A lot the ones I did back then were Soulja Boy beats, like way more simple stuff. There was no way back then I could just try and remix a Zaytoven beat. Even though I would try. You still are going to try but, you know.

Sonny Digital

At the beginning, like you said, trying to make a beat like Zaytoven on there it would be frustrating though. But when you crack it, and you really work it like how he was saying, if you was doing anything, you just going to get better, and you going to figure out how to do what you need to do. You know what I’m saying?

I don’t know. It’s a computer, too. You know what I’m saying? That’s another thing, too. I don’t know if a human being is really smarter than a computer. You know what I’m saying? It get real intricate. You know what I’m saying? Like FruityLoops, you can do so much stuff, though. You’ve just got to figure it out. I think what we know is probably only like 20% of it, though. You know what I’m saying? It’s a lot more into it. You’ve just got to go inside and figure it out. The only way you’re going to be limited is if you limit yourself, for real.

Torsten Schmidt

How much credit do you give to software for the importance of drum rolls in modern day production?

Sonny Digital

It made it a lot easier. I’m not going to lie. I don’t know. It made it a lot easier, though. You’ve got to look at Zay shit. Zay shit, I be looking. I’m pretty sure he feels like it’s easy, but that shit to me, I be like, “Bro!?” Yeah, but you be running through that shit [drum roll sounds] I’d be like “Yo, this man going crazy though.” But when we got on the FL, it made it easier, though. But still, though, it’s still a different swing, though, from how he do it too, and going through what he use, too. It’s just different still, though. He’s got it on smash, though. That’s why I say Zaytoven, he’s got his own lane. He do his own thing, but for real. Zay can tell you some more about that, if he wants.

Noz

Zay, what’s your set up looking like these days?

Zaytoven

I’m old school, still. I choose to be that way because they got that new stuff on smash. I don’t want to go get that new stuff and try to keep up with them. Like he said, if I’ve got my own lane, or I’ve got a sound already that people, they like, and they’re accustomed to, I’m just really sticking to my sound, adding new pieces, and a few new sounds, but for the most part, doing what I do. Doing what I do is based on me knowing how to play the keyboard, or me knowing how to play the drums, because I’ve got to manually do everything. I don’t know how to sample with the keyboard, or put something in. I’ve got to play it. I think that’s what gives me something different.

Noz

It’s interesting because it seems like all three of you guys are not huge samplers. Is that safe to say?

Zaytoven

I don’t even know how to sample. I don’t know if y’all do.

Metro Boomin

It’s safe to say.

Noz

Is that a creative decision, or is that more economical?

Zaytoven

I thought it was economical for me. I don’t want to have no big song and then give somebody else some money off of it. I just play it. If I want it to sound a certain way, I just learn how to play it that way.

Noz

You have that gift as well. How about you guys?

Metro Boomin

That shit, it started off, really with me it started off like a economic thing. Like same thing Zay said, I don’t want to get a hit, and then owe 50, 60, 70 percent of it to somebody else. You know what I’m saying? It started off that way, and it’s been like that for years. Then the past couple of years, really I’ve been sampling a lot of stuff because now I think about it differently. Now, just to this point, I’m okay for the music type shit, or what’s going to sound the craziest.

Now, I just get to the point where I don’t even really be thinking about all the publishing, or what’s on this song, or that, because I just know we’re going to just have so many more just going to keep coming. It’s like, it’s just one song. It’s for the culture. Just let them have the pub, just whatever. You know what I’m saying?

Noz

It’s a good place to be in.

Sonny Digital

I mean, I fuck with them, but then I kind of don’t though, because sometimes, them people be asking for some crazy portion of the sample.

Metro Boomin

Yeah, they get ignorant sometimes.

Sonny Digital

They get crazy sometimes. I be like, man, I’m not even going to do it. It don’t even make no sense at this point, though. You know what I’m saying? Like Metro said though, within the last couple of years, I’ve been doing it, though. We can still even call Zay and be like, “you replay this over right quick, bro. Just go ahead.”

Go ahead and kick them on out the picture right quick. You know what I’m saying? You know Zay going to put his own little curve on it. It’s sitting there. It’s a whole new sound now. We good. We good to go. Sample free.

Torsten Schmidt

I guess sometimes you’ve just go to… or you will make the decision of like, “Oh. I want to have a big song to perform out there,” or, “I want to get that recognition of ‘hey, this is what I can do.’ and I know I’m not going to make any cent on this” but…

Sonny Digital

Samples are fairly easy to do though, for real. Being creative, and making your own shit is the harder thing to do.

Metro Boomin

Exactly, and that’s what people need to understand because they just look at it like we’re just playing a game, or something. Like, me and Sonny Digital make beats with musicians. These are all of our scales, our melodies, all this shit is from scratch from our brain. You know what I’m saying?

I’m not even down playing sampling, because that shit’s dope, too, and you can get real creative and different with samples as far as like, changing the pitch, or the tempo, or chopping it, reversing it, whatever. You get real creative with that, but it’s still … You know what I’m saying? It’s not as from scratch, as what we be doing. You know what I’m saying?

Sonny Digital

But having the knowledge of knowing how to sample is good, though because we take, when we do collab with Zay and stuff, we treat like what he send us, like the stems, just like samples. Chop them up, put them where we want to. You know what I’m saying. We got the knowledge of how to work with samples, though, but I just try to kind of stay away from them though. I mean, I don’t run away from them, but I try to stay away from them.

Metro Boomin

For sure, because that’s all we do. Like now, I just sample my friends type shit. You know what I’m saying, because that’s really all that’s necessary. My boy Frank Dukes in Toronto, he’s one of the dopest. That’s my boy, but he send me samples all the time. You know what I’m saying? That’s a way where you don’t even have to deal with all that other stuff. This is just somebody else that I fuck with. You know what I’m saying? There’s a lot of other options. Even if I need a sample remade, or replayed, I know I can hit up Frank, or just anything like that. It’s several options.

Noz

What do you think? Should we listen to some more music real quick? You guys, do you have any requests?

Sonny Digital

Ask them.

audience member

“50 On My Wrist”!

Metro Boomin

Yeah, throw that on.

Sonny Digital

Crazy. What’d he say?

Torsten Schmidt

That sounded like someone wanted to hear a story about the song, as well.

Sonny Digital

Somebody wanted to hear a story about the song?

Torsten Schmidt

Before I play it.

Sonny Digital

Hold on. The story behind that song. I literally just went home. I recorded it at home. I did it myself. For people who don’t know, I rap, too. I started rapping before I was producing. I started producing, but then I started rapping, and I started making beats because I needed beats to rap on. You know what I’m saying? Then the beats became the job and so, like right now, I got a platform and kind of rap, or whatever, and do what I want to. On top of that, I got another song out with 50 Cent, that “I’m The Man” song. I’m on the hook on too. You know what I’m saying? I know you all kind of know that though. I made the beat and I wrote it, kind of, and I stayed on the hook and yeah, you know.

Torsten Schmidt

Basically, you’re going to be the next Kanye then?

Sonny Digital

It’s up to the people. You know what I’m saying? You know. It’s up to y’all, but with a “50 On My Wrist” the way the record came… I just do my thing at the crib. I just be at the house. I just be chilling. I really like the beat a lot though. I wish, I was trying to give it to some rappers and stuff, but the rappers wouldn’t take it. I remember, I gave it to one particular person. I went in with Nipsey, with Nipsey Hussle. I was like, “Man, this beat right here.” I just felt like he would have snapped on it, like real crazy, or whatever though, and I had gave it to him. He had asked me to start doing something on it though. I don’t know if I came up with that opening at that moment, I knew the beat was kind of fire, so I kinda tugged it though and took it home with me.

I went home and I went back and listened to it again. I just sat downstairs and I was just smoking, just chilling. I be freestyling all the songs too. I was down there, just freestyling. I just started putting it together. I treat, when I make the songs too, I treat it like making a beat though. I took my beatmaking skills and apply it to making a song. I freestyle the whole song through. Take parts of it and move it to the front. Take a part and put it right there. You know what I’m saying? I like really put it together. You know what I’m saying? I put it together and make it a song. You know what I’m saying? I did that. I recorded myself, mixed it myself and then put it out and that was that. It just came out. Produced by me, I made the beat too. I made the beat and I’m rapping on it too. You know?

Appreciate it. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Torsten Schmidt

One of the things that is probably quite striking in most of the productions there is the importance of the ID drop. How do-

Sonny Digital

Talk to this guy about that. I mean, we all got it, but he got it on lock! Your drop, “Metro Boomin want some mooooore.”

Metro Boomin

I’m sorry, so what was the question? I’m sorry. I just thought you said something else. I didn’t know you said drop. I didn’t catch the first part.

Sonny Digital

Man, you don’t listen.

Torsten Schmidt

It was about the importance of branding your actual production in that classic “Just Blaaaaaze!”

Metro Boomin

I mean, even if you don’t have a drop, I just feel like you should bring yourself somehow. You know, any kind of way, but the drop, it’s cool. It’s entertaining. It’s definitely entertaining, but it’s not something that I use on every song. You know what I’m saying? A lot of times, you know, it just fits sometimes, or it could already be on the beat, or a lot of beats I make sometimes, they’re not on there. I have to go back and add them. I feel like with the culture right now, it’s something. It’s fun. Even like back then with Drumma Boy. He didn’t like really have a drop on there, but he would be on the beginning. He’d be like, “Yeah, boy,” and I just feel like that was one of the dopest things to me back then when I was younger. You know what I’m saying?

Sonny Digital

Zay drop too.

Metro Boomin

Come on, the Zay drop, the most legendary.

Zaytoven

I don’t think I remember a drop before mine, and when I did it, I did it when I did Gucci Mane, Hard to Kill album. I did the whole album. I put the drop at the beginning of the album, but I ain’t put it on none of the other songs. I went in and said my name. Yeah, that was me saying that. I had my buddy just put some on it. I didn’t use the tag until later on, when I started hearing a lot of beats that sound like mine. I’m like, “Wait a minute, that ain’t me, I didn’t do that.” That’s when I had to start putting the tag on it. Then people that buy beats they’re like, “Man, can you put the tag on the beat?” I just started putting them on all the beats. Gucci Mane and them used to be my tag, because they used to say my name on every song.

Torsten Schmidt

Is that usually how it works, or do you guys have to like, advocate to have your tag at the beginning of a beat? You know what I’m saying?

Zaytoven

Now, they don’t want to be without the tags now. Well, now let me say that… Let me do this because when I gave Usher the beat with the tag on they’re like, “No, that ain’t going to stay on there. No, we got to take that off.” I guess they were too big. They’re like, “No, we don’t want your tag on there.”

Sonny Digital

“Birthday Song”, they took me, they took me out. They took me out of “Birthday Song”, so I missed a lot of clout on that one. They said the way the song started off the tag couldn’t be in there. I was like, “Okay, cool.” I ain’t going to get mad. I was just going to let it slide. I’ll be back. I be back.

Torsten Schmidt

I guess that second when you got that call, you were kind of bummed out right?

Sonny Digital

No, I wasn’t never one of the people that got bummed out about that type of stuff though. I was always like, “Okay man, at least I got it.” You know? I just kept it moving. I didn’t get bummed out. I mean, I got before and on top of that too, I was already in there. I was just chilling and like trying to do my own thing already. I be like, “Okay, cool.” I said, “I’ll be back, It don’t matter, I’ll be around.”

Torsten Schmidt

As this is a Beatmaker Roundtable, I suppose there’s a few people in here who actually do beats, themselves. How do you guys specifically navigate that eternal struggle between the kick drum and anything else that’s bassy and how to separate them so that everyone’s got their room and it cuts through?

Zaytoven

Me, man, I might have three different bass going on and I just add them all on top of each other. All of them might be loud and you can’t tell which one from the other one, but I think that’s what makes the type of music that we make. You know. We not trying to make it just the 808 and the bass not clash. It’s clashing, like that really don’t sound good, but it do sound good. You know that I mean? We don’t really try to separate it like that. Yeah, I just throw whatever in there.

Metro Boomin

I always notice that man, even back in middle school. One thing I always loved about Zay’s music so much is how free and abstract it was. How everything people put out so well put together and fine tuned. He would have a bass note, and then that one would overlap on the next one.

Zaytoven

Yeah, it overlapped.

Metro Boomin

All the time. To me, that was one of his signatures like, “Man, I know that’s Zay, how the bass is just like running into each other like that.” When I made beats, even back then, it would be something like, “Oh no, I can’t never do that,” or like, that’s just how you’re trained to think. You know what I’m saying? Zay’s just like, “Man, fuck it.” It would be hard every time though.

Zaytoven

I felt like, “Hey, they say they like it.” You know what I mean? Really, the reason why it happened like that was because I didn’t know how to go in there and chop the bass to stop it from overlapping, so I just-

Metro Boomin

Hey, that’s hard though! Couches be listening to it like, “Man, he really just?” I was an accident, but then you just hear it all the time. Like “damn, this is what Zay just be doing”, or I just thought he didn’t care.

Zaytoven

I didn’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care. I say if Gucci the man don’t care about what he’s saying, then I don’t care what the beat sound like.

Metro Boomin

Straight up.

Zaytoven

Straight up.

Noz

Well, I would like to hear, maybe some Gucci stories if you don’t mind.

Zaytoven

Oh no, he got some real stories.

Metro Boomin

You got to turn the cameras off.

Zaytoven

You got to turn the cameras off to tell them stories.

Noz

Well, maybe a PG rated one. Could you recall?

Zaytoven

A story about Gucci, let me see what brings back memories. Ah, that’s hard to say. All the stories I remember have been, you know, the stories that I probably don’t want to talk about on camera. You know, the best thing that I always think about Gucci, and I talk about is, Gucci is a guy that promoted me to the fullest. It don’t matter where we go, we can go to the studio with Jay-Z. He going to talk about me like I’m the best producer in the world, and I didn’t even have no songs at the time. I didn’t have no big record. He like “Oh Zay, you gotta get beats from Zay, Zay the best.” You know what I mean? It could be Timbaland could give him some beats and he be like “No, Timbaland, we don’t want your beats. We’re going to use Zay’s beats.”

Metro Boomin

Aye, straight up.

Zaytoven

He make me be uncomfortable like, “Well, hold on Gucci Mane you ain’t got to say it like that.” You know what I mean? I give a lot of credit, I give a lot of credit to Gucci, because he gave me the confidence. He gave me the confidence to feel like, “okay, well, I AM the best producer to him, I am, and he’s one of the hottest guys out.” You know, it help give me the confidence to be who I am.

Torsten Schmidt

On the Gucci tip, I mean he’s known for his mixtapes. You guys put out a lot of stuff on mixtapes. How do you make any money off that as a producer?

Zaytoven

Me, I capitalize off the street guys that want to be in the music business. You know, once you hear a lot of music, like on mixtapes, especially what me and Gucci, or even nowadays, you know if I’m doing some music with Future or Migos, or whoever, it draws other people that want to be in the music business to say, “I need to get some beats from Zaytoven. He just did beats with Future, or such and such.” They coming to pay top dollar. So while I’m not getting money because we’re giving out free music, it’s coming back door to the people that want to be in the music business. It makes my number real high.

Torsten Schmidt

So it’s good advertisement.

Zaytoven

Yeah, it’s good advertisement. What you don’t want to do is to not be on these mixtapes, because then you fall off and don’t nobody want no beats, and you ain’t going to be on nobody albums and you’re going to be fell off.

Noz

I mean, as established artists, there’s an end game in that. It seems like there’s probably a lot of young producers who are just getting the placements and then not, like how do they even…

Zaytoven

Well you know, you hoping for, in this music we always hoping for a big song. Even nowadays, even though we established and we’re pretty straight, as far as money-wise, we still chasing after, a big record. Another hit record, so that’s what those young producers are doing. They coming in, just getting mixtape placement. Hoping to make it on the album, or hoping one of these songs blow up, so they can get their time to shine.

Noz

Is that kind of the goal for you guys as well? Are you aiming for the hit, or are you …

Sonny Digital

Usually, when you work on mixtapes too, that’s a relationship builder too. You know what I’m saying? It’s kind of like, show your loyalty to an artist sometimes too and that’ll kind of transcend from a mixtape to an album sometimes. You know what I’m saying? Sometimes it’s good to stay down and just… That’s like the stay down process. You know what I’m saying? You just kind of grind it on out though. You’re not always going to get paid for every single beat. You know what I’m saying? You’ve got to use some of them to build your brand and be able to make money off of it though. You know what I’m saying? The mixtapes, mixtapes is what allowed us to like put out that much music though. If everything cost, and everybody paid, you wouldn’t hear as much of us and we probably wouldn’t be as poppin’. The artist probably be like a lot more poppin’ than us still. If it was still the other way around though, we’ll be eating, we’ll be eating like crazy but we won’t be like as popping, like us being popping it kind of help us eat more though. Help us last out a little longer.

Torsten Schmidt

Speaking of relationship building, did Donatella send you guys a whole lot of free Versace?

Zaytoven

I didn’t get one shirt.

Torsten Schmidt

Donatella?

Zaytoven

I was going in the store, like “Hey y’all know I made the Versace song, can I get some shoes or something?” No, they ain’t want to do nothing but take some pictures, they ain’t want to give me no clothes.

Noz

Can we talk about Migos I guess, I think that’s a good entry point, something I’ve been thinking about a lot. Where it seems like a lot of the records you guys worked on, become kind of specific blueprints for what everybody does, in the industry. Is that something that is exciting to you? Is that frustrating to hear a song on the radio six months later that sounds like something you made?

Zaytoven

It gets frustrating later on, when people making stuff that sounds like what you created. Like, you know, we did “Versace”, it was like a new rap pattern, new style that just hit. That’s from Atlanta. Some new guys is from the north side of Atlanta that don’t nobody even talk about the north side. They came with a new style and a new sound, ad it’s a three man group, and I don’t remember seeing a three man rap group in a long time. Once we came up with “Versace”, you heard every artist in the world rapping on this thing.

Metro Boomin

To this day.

Zaytoven

Yeah, to this day. After a while it gets all, “oh all right okay, y’all can stop that.” It makes the artist have to go and try to find something else to do cause everyone else is taking away from what they created.

Noz

How about you Metro? What’s your feelings on this matter?

Metro Boomin

It’s cool. I look at it like, inspiration. Imitation is definitely the greatest form of flattery. I just look at it like, “okay, if you doing what we was doing six months ago, we already own what you gonna be doing two years from now”, type shit. You know what I’m saying? It’s really just about always progressing and keeping the sound moving. Always trying new things.

Torsten Schmidt

Shall we … would you guys be okay to take some more questions from the floor?

Metro Boomin

Yeah, yeah.

Torsten Schmidt

Shall we play some music so you guys can think about something?

Noz

I heard a Beast Mode request a few minutes ago

Metro Boomin

I was about to say it but I was like “man they don’t know about that.” That’s like my favorite song from Beast Mode. Soulful, man. It’s soulful, soulful.

Zaytoven

Sound like a jazz club.

Metro Boomin

Man.

Noz

How we looking on questions? Anybody?

Torsten Schmidt

Hold on.

Audience Member

I know that you work at a very fast pace, but do you … let me word it for a second. Do you enjoy also taking things slow when it comes to the beatmaking process and taking your time to put out the craft or do you just work at a really fast pace all the time in general?

Zaytoven

I think the reason why I like working at a fast pace is because the music game is almost about quantity. You got to have a million songs out to keep people in tune with you. I realize when I sit down and make beats at a slow pace, and I spend a lot of time on them, they’re not as special as the beats I made in five minutes when I got to hurry up and get ready to get out the door and go somewhere. It seems like those are the beats that people react to all the time. I remember when I was sending beats to Usher, here recently, and I tried to send him all the stuff I sat down and spent a lot of time on, made sure all the music was perfect and all that. I sent it to him, and they call me back, “Hey yo Zaytoven this stuff sound good but can you send me the beat that you let Migos and Future and them rap on?”

It taught me a lesson to be like, this is what the people want. The people want this type of music, and that’s the type of music I make when I’m in a hurry. It’s a feeling when I’m making music. I’m not really taking a long time with it. I like to make music fast. And the rappers are impatient, they don’t want to wait.

Audience member

Thank you very much. Sonny, I know that you’ve been rapping before you started producing, but you just started getting significant as a rapper right now. Do you ever feel that people put you in a box as like, “he’s just a producer first and foremost, or he can’t rap?” Do you feel that way or no?

Sonny Digital

I mean it come with the stigma though, producer, rapper. You really can’t deny something good though, and on top of that though to be honest, a lot of people don’t really know how I sound as a rapper. When I put out a record and the way record’s coming out. Metro could put out a record with Future and everybody on it, and it might say Metro Boomin featuring Future, and the name of the song or whatever. That’s how people is seeing songs and stuff now. When they see Sonny Digital “50 On My Wrist” or something like that, they might think it’s somebody else, and might not even know it’s me, and before they figure it out it’s me, they might say it’s cool.

By the time you say it’s cool, it’s too late to say it back. Take it back, and say it’s not cool when you done figured out it’s Sonny now. You know what I’m saying? I guess it is like undeniable, a lot of my fans they been knowing I been rapping though too. When certain people try to box me in, I got a lot of fans whose been rocking with me for a long time, they’ll come back and knock them out and let them know what’s really good. I done rapped on this man’s beats, I done rapped on this man’s beats. I been doing that though, but it’s just like, now I got the platform for people to actually pay attention and see it and kind of respect it for what it is.

And on top of that too, it’s also a smarter business move. I want people to understand that, it’s just a smarter business move to hop on your beats and do your own stuff and that’s a hundred percent right there. Then on top of that, if you don’t want to be an artist you can reference a hook on your beat and give it to an artist and, say, Metro did a song so cold for OJ the Juice Man, that I fucking love, man, he wrote the fucking whole thing. I was like, “why this shit so hard?” And when he told me he wrote it I was like, “oh my god, bro.”

Metro Boomin

Me and Zay made the beat. Shout out to Zay. Shout out.

Sonny Digital

Exactly. Exactly. On top of that too I’m trying to break a little mold and trying to show people something new. I want producers to not be scared to like hop on their own beats. Like hop on that shit up. You know how Kanye West is a producer/rapper? A lot of people don’t see that happen. A lot of people just know him as Kanye the producer. I’m not saying that’s what I want to do right now though, I do want to be that actual producer that make that switch for this generation for them to actually see it. You know what I’m saying? That’s what I’m trying to do.

Torsten Schmidt

Before you put the next one in. There’s a good chance we want to give other people a chance as well cause we got to have a hard stop in ten minutes, otherwise you guys will have trouble getting into the venue, and I guess some of you might want to hear peoples play records later. Be quick.

Audience Member

I’m sorry. This question is very quick for Metro though. I know you played bass in middle school. Do you ever think about going back?

Metro Boomin

To bass? I don’t know. I thought about going back and diving way deeper back into the piano thing again. Bass, that was something I did for like, maybe like six months and stopped. It was cool and everything, but you know. Young and stuff happens.

Audience member

What’s going on? As you guys are all creative individuals and this has been a long road for you guys coming up, I just wanted to know, have any of you guys ever gone through that moment, where it’s just like, “yo fuck this, I don’t want to do this no more, I’m not getting my break?” Do you have a story behind that and what did you do to get out of that funk? Cause we all go through that shit and I just want to know if you guys ever went through that.

Sonny Digital

I just signed a messed up deal. It’s pretty common. I just signed a messed up deal, it brought me down, I was knee deep in the game so I couldn’t really just stop working. When I did that deal, even going through that, it opened up my eyes and I learned a lot of things by just going through the fucked up part, going through that fucked up deal, going through that stuff though. Like I said, I was already knee deep in the game, people already knew me, and I had like a good support system. Even though niggers didn’t know they was supporting me, just like them working with me was good enough for me. It was just cool. It kind of just elevated me thinking about what I was in, and just helped me work through it.

I’m still working through it. I just do my job. I man up to what I did, just rock it on out, and after that I learned my lesson, I’m gonna keep it moving. Zaytoven actually got a movie similar to like my situation. You all should probably watch it. You should probably watch it, it’s kind of crazy, it’s a good movie. On Netflix, I believe.

Noz

What’s the name?

Zaytoven

Movie on Netflix called Birds of a Feather. Check it out.

Metro Boomin

Classic.

Audience member

I appreciate you guys, first of all, I’m sure everybody does, but thank you for your time and good work. I got a specific question relating to the studio. I wanted to know if you guys ever see something that you know is going to cause a problem or something, for instance, you see a rapper start to write knowing that they’re better at freestyling, and is there ever something where you’re like, “oh he’s gonna get too thoughtful or too conscious” or something and you want to say like, “don’t, let’s just keep it fresh.” Don’t go into writing because I noticed some people will scratch out a bunch of lines and at the end they’re looking at me like, “I don’t know,” but their freestyle was hot but they weren’t like, we were kind of sound checking. I wanted to know in y’all’s experience, anything that you notice in the studio that was like not a good sign.

Zaytoven

Not a good sign with a artist… That’s hard for me to say.

Sonny Digital

Not with a specific artist but with a writer. A writer done had some weird issues. He just came in started lighting candles and shit. We were in the studio, my publishing company set it up, it just started getting all weird and shit, man. I’m like “bro, like, I’m off this.”

Metro Boomin

That’s why I don’t do weird shit like that.

Sonny Digital

That was at the beginning of my career. I was just trying to fulfill my role and shit though, I was just trying to, they set it up, I was just trying to be a team player. Ended up in that weird ass predicament. I got drunk. I was like “I’m about to get out of this predicament.” I got drunk in the motherfucker, woke up the next day out of there. Ejected myself right on up out of there. For real.

Metro Boomin

That’s deezy.

Sonny Digital

Ain’t never seen him again. For real.

Audience member

How do you guys keep having that friendly competition going on instead of having it devolve into unfriendly?

Zaytoven

As producers you know, we really just inspire each other. Anytime, only way that Sonny and Metro make me mad is when they do real good. When they do real good, it makes me go real hard and it eventually makes me do real good. It never gets past that. It never gets past inspiring each other to go hard.

Torsten Schmidt

On that note, go out, inspire each other. Have fun tonight listening to these guys play, and give these guys a warm …

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