Kenny Beats on the Regional Sounds of Hip Hop

There’s a reason Kenny Beats is one of the great young producers in Hip Hop. Because he has a vast understanding of the regional sounds and histories of cities to pull from when making beats for an artist. This allows him to find a common musical language with rappers. Which is super important in an art form as hyper-local as rap. We’re kicking off a two part series of interviews with Kenny Beats, in the one you’re about to hear which was taped a while back, Kenny maps out the evolution of regional sounds in hip-hop ... drawing parallels between disparate cities. And how Hip Hop has evolved from creating beats out of old drum samples—known as breakbeats—to sampling and referencing itself.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. There's a reason Kenny Beats is one of the
great young producers in hip hop because he does his homework.
Kenny has a vast understanding of the regional sounds and
histories of cities to pull from when making beats. For

(00:35):
an artist, this allows him to find a common musical
language with rappers, which gives him a leg up in
an art form as hyperlocal as a rap. Everything from
the popular local dances to the type of crime most
prevalent in different cities can inform the sound of a
local scene and influences how Kenny might approach making a beat. Today,
we're kicking off a two part series of interviews with

(00:57):
Kenny Beats and The One You're About to Hear, which
was taped a while back. Kenny maps out the evolution
of regional sounds in hip hop, drawing parallels between disparate
cities and now hip hop has evolved from creating beats
out of old drum samples known as breakbeats, to sampling
and referencing itself. I should also say that Kenny producer
theme song The One You're About to Hear as if

(01:19):
he were Rick Rubin in nineteen eighty five. See ifing
gets which Specie Boys song it's based on. This is
broken record liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Richmonds.
Here's Rick Rubin and Kenny Beats at Shanglu La. What's

(01:41):
a good what's a good place to start? Well, really, like,
first off, everything that you and I have talked about
when it comes to regional hip hop and these things,
I'm talking about such a short time period. Yes, I
was born in ninety one, so I'm really thinking a
little bit before when I was born, and then how
that came into all the stuff I grew up with,
and then all the stuff I'm actually working in now

(02:03):
and what that was routed in. But oftentimes, like most
of the parallels I'm finding between two cities or two
artists or influence going on in the radio now or
even on like a street level, it doesn't go back
as far as like hip hop's roots go back. You
know what I mean When I talk about like all
the connections between Memphis and Atlanta, and all the connections

(02:25):
between Detroit in the Bay Area, or even like Florida
and New Orleans. The real like common denominator for me
all started by the time like drum machines and eight
O eights were introduced and those kinds of things. So
I'm not even thinking back as far as like when
Boombap hit any of these cities or g Funk or

(02:46):
even that, It's just the conversation starts there, yes, you know,
and like I think it's just so interesting how like
there was like the first big rapper like signed coming
out of Detroit that people always talk about was this
dude named Robert s got signed in like nineteen eighty five,
and that was like very reminiscent of like Brooklyn hip
hop and like you know what I mean, like New

(03:07):
York kind of stuff. But like the common conversation with
Detroit is always eminem Kid Rock, Danny Brown, Big Sean,
like those are the people like on the Mount rushmore
of big commercial hip hop in Detroit that comes to
everyone's minds. But what's going on on the street level
there right now is so different than any of those

(03:29):
four big artists. And it all started from what I
understand with like artists like dex Osama and artists like
Team east Side and what was dexas grouping of the
Choppa Boys, and like I can play an example right now,
the easiest parallel to always draw with people as Detroit
in the Bay. It's all really fast. When people talk

(03:51):
about Bay Area music, they really do think of like
a mustard beat, or they think of like these kind
of like swung G funk influenced, you know what I mean,
kinds of production and raps and stuff. And Detroit to
me is what all the people in the Bay are
always talking about and listening to when I'm talking to
those artists, and the first time you hear what I
think of is like the current style that goes on

(04:14):
in that city and where all those kids draw from.
The forefather is from the late nineties, you know what
I mean. It's it doesn't go back decades and decades,
and like when you hear decks of stuff, you hear
big reverbi pianos like piscicado strings and acid basslines, it's
always these don't don't, don't don't play some play something

(04:43):
my moment shout, I've gotten the reason why I got
this vest on me. Yeah, these niggas won't needn't come
in I so you can hear like it kind of
sounds like the beats are being made with like the
stock string sound, the stock piano sound, the stock bass
sound they had. But when I listen to it, it's

(05:07):
very often in early like Detroit rap and this subgenre
of it an acid base wound, like the same similar
kind of bass sound. And Detroit is also known for
fathering techno, and there's a lot of those same sound
palettes used. So in my mind, I'm like, Okay, somebody
learned how to make music in Detroit around people who

(05:28):
were familiar with these certain synthesizers, these certain drum machines
or whatever. But what was resonating where they were from
wasn't for on the floor drums, wasn't techno, wasn't this.
It was different kinds of patterns, different kinds of beats.
They were probably listening to stuff from other cities. So
when they go to do a high hat pattern on
a t R A to eight, or they go do
a bassline on an old juno or whatever it is,

(05:51):
they're emulating the melodies and the drum patterns and everything
of hip hop, but they're using techno sounds really if
you look at it, and I think that's where like
the early Detroit sound came from. The tempo and everything
got updated by what kids were listening to in this net,
but it really was from Detroit techno elements. And when

(06:11):
you listen to the biggest rappers in Detroit right now,
if you go to a party in Detroit and play
these songs like the entire room knows every word if
even if they have no hook, you hear such similar elements.
And the producer today, who I think everyone considers just
the godfather of the current Detroit sound as hell of
a And when you listen to some of the hottest
stuff going on out of the Bay or like artists

(06:34):
like Geasy, you know what I mean, or artists like
that are coming out of La right now, a lot
of their sound is informed by these tempos, these kinds
of kick pounds, these drum patterns, And I think when
you look at Mustard and you look at like how
he took over radio in twenty twelve with these big
basselined hundred bpm beats and that I think it's a

(06:55):
combination of like these Detroit and Bay sister city like
kinds of styles of beat making and rap. But at
the same time, the producers he grew up listening to
probably weren't the guys making these beats in Detroit. He
was probably listening to the Battlecat, and he was probably
listening to DJ Quick, and he was probably listening to
LA music, where the sound choice is different and the

(07:18):
bounce is different. So like when you talk about g
Funk or you talk about like legendary La and Bay producers, like,
it's much more swung and much more funky, you know
what I mean. And it's a much different kind of
attitude than the Detroit shit, just like being in the
Motor City is a way different attitude than being in
the Bay. And so I think they were inspired by

(07:40):
each other. But Mustard was going to use a softer,
rounder bass sound instead of that acid base because it
might be a little more smooth, but he's still going
to keep it at one hundred bpm. The only the
only difference is sound choice. To me, really a little
bit of tempo, a little bit of sound choice, but
it's essentially the same vibe and you're getting across like

(08:02):
the same kind of feeling and you listen to like,
like even in other huge Mustard songs like be Honest
for kid Ink, like you hear the piano influence and
you hear other things that are very Detroit it's just

(08:27):
he opts for the snaps and the no hats and
the chill little like like the little chants and extra
percussion and hat rolls rather than the really strict fast
you know what I mean, hats and percussion of this
and that. But it's similar sound choice too. You hear
those same like chant sounds and same rim rolls and

(08:47):
everything in both the beats. It's just a matter of
like swing bounce mustards a little behind the beat or
I feel like Detroit stuff is either strictly quantized or
if anything, a little ahead. Do you think that, um,
the local drug choice makes a difference in the tempos
and it's it's got to. I mean, if you look
at the Bay, like one of the biggest movements ever

(09:08):
out of the Bay is a high fee movement. And
if you look at mac dre and keep the Sneak
and all those kinds of guys like it was very
informed by Molly, you know what I mean, and like
by the drugs that they were doing and stuff. And
in Detroit, I mean it's not necessarily drugs, but the
type of crime and the type of things that go
on their prostitution mainly and the different types of drugs,
like much more harder stuff. From what I understand, that

(09:29):
gets sold in Detroit way more prevalently is that's talked
about in the music way more, you know what I mean,
And from what I understand, the Bay Area and Detroit
of that in common with prostitution and things like that.
But you hear about different kinds of things because this
music is getting made on a street level and they're
just talking about what they know in that city. And
that's what gets the biggest reaction is the people who

(09:51):
are being the most authentic and the most honest and
the most regional. They're talking about things that specifically, you know,
this neighborhood. Like when you talk about New Orleans bounce music.
One of the characteristics of bounce music is call and response.
From day one with a big Freeda and Magnolia Shorty
and those kinds of people, like it was always about
getting the audience to respond to something that you were saying.

(10:13):
Even in the beats, it would be there'ld be these
big chants and something about like let me see you

(10:40):
bet it, let me see you bets it, let me
see you The energy is incredibly yeah, and it's so
high up and the whole genre of of of bounce
music is based in two or three drum samples. If
you ask anyone who knows anything about bounce music, they'll
tell you the trigger Man, uh drum loop is what
basically the whole genre was created off of it. If
you look up just the trigger Man, it's but the

(11:01):
original record is the show Boys. Everyone knows this. The
whole genre is based in that. And it's like that
that one break created this whole thing, and it's from
drum machines, you know what I mean. It's not a
James Brown thing. It's not an old meters like loop.
It's someone played those eight oh eight rims and then

(11:23):
sampled that and forty other songs and it created a
tempo and a vibe and this and that. But like
when you see the like the call and response thing
that goes on and bounce music turned into cash money
and no limit and artists like Juvenile or credited being
at the start of dance music and then they turned

(11:44):
into like crunk music from there. And then you see
little John all of a sudden be influenced by these
big call in response channel if you like everything he
was saying was always like further Crowd, like to the
Windows too. I was like, it's very New Orleans bounce,
you know what I mean. Even if you look at

(12:04):
like the influence on Memphis to crunk music and Little John, Like,
there's so many different parallels there. And at this point
when you trace back either the artists I'm working with,
the artists I'm big fans of, I'm not always like, oh,
this goes back to this old DJ Premier record and
that was sampled from this James Brown record, because I

(12:26):
feel like so much of hip hop is like that.
But now we're so far along that it's like I'm
tracing it back to people sampling something off an ASR
or you know, an NPC, and that only goes back
to the early nineties, late eighties, you know, like G
Easy and Cardi B have a current song. I think
it's called no Limit. Let me play it. If I

(12:49):
hit it one time, I'm a White book, if I
hit it two times in the like of if three
Times I'm a White it's the it's a sample of
slab of My Knob by three six Mafia. They redo
the flow. There's things about the beat that are really
similar than give Me don't have the eggs, don't have

(13:11):
to pay Memphis super Memphis like MPCs TR eight to eights,
super simple patterns. But like asap Ferg's biggest song last
year Ride with the Mob, hamdu A La check and
with Me and do your job is the name Bimbala
did the chain tona photo watch Presi Plaine Jain, Yeah,

(13:34):
make Guiney chain arrested piece So and that's a huge
New York artist and then a huge Bay Area artist
and Cardi also a New York artist, all being influenced
by an old song from Memphis, and three six Mafia
were known for slowing down the trigger Man break that
came from New Orleans. They all tie in in a

(13:54):
weird way. So like this has been something for me
that's just been such a phenomenon in the last few years,
because I stopped making hip hop for a while, and
I came back to it and was so scared that
my card would get pulled off, not understanding you don't
even certain thing that's going on in a city, or
the lineage of it and or how to make it
or the sound choice, and so I would get stuck

(14:16):
in these little pockets of being like Okay, I'm working
with this kid right now from Baltimore. I need to
understand more about what goes on there in the rap scene,
in the dance music scene, what kind of dances come
from there, what kind of attitude the people have from there,
and why the type of crime it's on in the city.
It's like, all these things inform the conversation of what

(14:38):
my high hat pattern is going to be when I
get there that day. And it's sometimes something that's small
that gets the person to get on the record and
do their thing or not because you're assuming, like, oh,
let me just let me clean that up that snares
a little ahead of the beat, let me just quantize
that for you, and then do a similar beat to
your last single. And then guys get there and they're like, nah,

(14:58):
this doesn't feel right. And it's not always even the
volume in the studio or the sound choice or anything
like that. It doesn't rhythmically hit where they're used to
it hitting in their head when they think about home
and they think about the process of making music that
they started with in their basement with their friends, and
it probably affects a comfort level in there in the
way the rhyme works. It's like if you're used to

(15:20):
a certain bounce and writing to a certain bounce and
a comfort level, it's harder to it's harder to channel that. Yeah,
if it's bouncing different, even if the temple is the same.
And I think guys assume that they're being a good
engineer or a friend to the artist or the song
by trying to clean something up with an equeue or

(15:41):
trying to put it on beat, or trying to make
it relate to something that they think is working right
now on the radio or for another artist, blah blah,
And that's where you lose everything. And for me, it's
like understanding when a new artist comes to the studio
from New Orleans that it's not always a conversation of like, oh,
do you understand the trigger man break and help bounce
music started? It's not that, but it informs where they're from,

(16:06):
what they grew up on. Maybe they lean towards these
kinds of tempt Maybe they scored these rhythms, maybe not,
but it's in each case to learn about them. Did
you have to go to the places I haven't been
to a lot of the places I've wanted to, but
a lot of times. I'd been to these places before
I learned more about it, because I'd traveled as a
DJ for years. I've been to forty something states playing shows,

(16:28):
but then came back into hip hop and working with
all these different artists a lot of the time in
LA and it was kind of like getting schooled about
these places that yeah, I've been there. Oh yeah, I
know about this neighborhood and this restaurant and so forth
and so on. But did I ever apply any of
that knowledge of what I'd even seen in my life
to the music. No, not before someone was right in
front of me and was saying to me, like, now

(16:49):
this is how we do it, like it's sposed that's
supposed to be what's wrong to you, that's right to us,
And now like that's paramount for me. So it still
wouldn't be what you make wouldn't really follow a templated
you'd use this information as it's like a menu of
things to pick from because you don't want to make

(17:13):
the same record someone else made. Never but it's basically
a lot of the time the job. I feel like
if the producer in the studio should be just to
give the vocabulary to the artist so they can get
out their idea better. You're trying to show them, Okay,
maybe you want to try this vocal effect, or you
want to try this instrument, or you wanta try this
variation of this instrument. For me, it was giving me

(17:35):
a vocabulary to understand what they're doing, you know what
I mean, because a lot of times I'm always helping
you know what I mean, And like, this is the
artist helping me to just come into their world. Even
if we don't use that lesson today, a decision I
make or a sound choice or whatever is going to
be just informed by the conversation of oh, like you

(17:57):
make music from Memphis, you know I mean, I'd work
on a lot of rap. So, like we were saying
with the Bounce music, shouting out, where you're from, who
you are, what you stand for is a quintessential like
cornerstone of a lot of the artists I work with.
Where they're from is who they are, And my mind,
I'm like, Okay, would an ode to where you come

(18:18):
from as far as the tempo or a sample or
the sound choice set it off when you play this
live in your hometown, I think it would. And like
those are the moments where this becomes a tool where
you're like, oh my god, where the DJ mentality brought
into production really helps. You're always thinking about what's going

(18:38):
to rock the club. But isn't that what you would
say when you used to talk about the first records
on deaf Jam is that the rap records that were
coming out didn't reflect how it felt when you went
to a rap show. You would hear all this scratching
and all this mic work and all these things, and
like that's what brought those songs to life. I think
with people now, like whenever that breakbeat or triggerman sample

(19:01):
or old vocal thing or something from your childhood or
that place that makes you think of somewhere comes into
a new song now with an updated type of beat
or drum sound or tempo or whatever it is, it
already like sets such a strong platform and foundation for
like this song to reach a lot of people and

(19:22):
make them feel a lot you know what I mean,
because it's it's routed and like, oh, this is an
experience a lot of these producers that created these waves
and these sounds, whether it was what they were playing
or they're sampling or whatever. I think they're shocked now
that a lot of times on hip hop, the music
serves like a bed behind these huge drums, and it's
not these samples right in the front of these big

(19:43):
melodies or keyboards things. It's like there's kids who were
so influenced by crunk music and by three six Maffi
and by all these things that now it's like the
drums and the swing of the drums and the sounds
of the drums are the biggest thing in so many records,
and you end up with artists like Splurge and ten
K and kids from Texas who just rap on eight
o eights Do you want to play? Sure? Splurge is

(20:06):
from Arlington. These kids just wrap on just drumps. Yeah,
get that shit to my mom. He'll deal with the
fashion that she came from town. I came from the mood.
She took some time. I really to drink like a
little bits, to go to the pen like a prison.
Is so good. He's in every single label, meeting everything

(20:29):
he could be in, telling them no melodies, no hooks.
It's so good. His mixtape was called no Melody, the
name of the tape, Like they are the most quintessential
example of like just getting at how you live, making
what sounds good to your friends where they are. And
I think it was it's with Spurs, like he's to
the point now where if he doesn't just hear something

(20:51):
big and hard and instinctual and powerful that everybody in
the room goes, he doesn't even want it. And that's
what I was saying about the good and bad parts
of that. And hip hop is like it informs people
in a certain respect of like, Okay, we know this
is gonna work at the club, and we know that
this is gonna go off in this region. Kids from
around here are going to rock with how this song

(21:12):
is moving because it just feeds into what we all
know and what we all collectively like the zeitgeist of
this area. Like it's crazy when you see artists who
are very much from somewhere and act like it and
look like it and have the same slang and accent
or whatever, but their music just sounds like somewhere else

(21:33):
very specifically, even like kids like Shoreline Mafia who are
from LA and very big in LA. People always talk
about how bay their music is, and yet it's within
a state, but it's two completely different scenes and sounds,
And I mean New York is really kind of an
outlier too. I feel like even today, like I think
New York, a lot of young, hot New York artists

(21:55):
hate the fact that when people talk about New York beats,
they think of Boom Bat nine, they think of Wu
Tang type rhythms and beats and you know what I mean,
they think of Alchemists beats, they of mob Deep. But
if you look at the newest, biggest songs from there,
if you look at all six Nines music, it's the same.

(22:17):
It's in the nineties, it's all ninety ninety five. If
you look at Bobby Schmirda, his biggest song ever, hot
Boy Like, it was literally boom Bat DJ premier New
York City rap music tempo, it's the it's these kinds
of things you're hearing now and and drill music and
in the New Atlanta musicles of the New York. Yeah,
let's play like a classic one n This is the

(22:55):
first thing you played that sounds like it's rooted in
a breakbeat feel totally. And but that's that's classic New York.
I think when people think New York, that's what they
think of. And then you look at like the biggest
artist in New York now like Gummo actually wasn't even
in the nineties as far BPM rights, but a lot

(23:16):
of six nines music works in the same tempos. They
never pop you fully by Whatsout, My nap Out, Mom
got outs Out, We got so about my Nigga's really
game ban same day. It's so fast. It sounds like

(23:39):
a descendant of Crunk though totally, But this is New
York rap now. Interesting. Bobby Schmirda, do you remember when
you first heard Crunk? Yeah, I was like eight. Did
it blow your mind? Because it destroyed me when I
heard I loved it. I remember hearing like Young Bloods
and Ying Yang Twins and hearing Little John's production first

(24:02):
and just being like in awe of how simple and
hard it was. Yeah, and just being like like, remember
the whisper song by Getting Twins, Doom Doom Doom Doom Doom.
I'm like, oh you find it? Yeah, you doing my
Little Mamma Lemon Whisper. Yeah, you think about it. This

(24:26):
was a hit so cool, and they're not too far
away from what Splurge is doing now. It's an eight
to eight and a snap, splurgees then eight to eighty. Hey,
let me hear it. Hut you super distorted and like
super new with the sound choice, but it's still just

(24:47):
drums and it's focused on the flow. And now they
call it ASMR. But I feel like with like the
Whisper song, Hey, all that extra mouth noise and everything
here is what makes it so interesting on such a
simple beat. And with Splurge they record it in the
middle of a room with all his friends and you
hear all this room noise and extra stuff. And he

(25:07):
also wraps really quiet and really in front of the mic,
similar in Palette you know what. And songs like the
Motto by Drake, like huge hit with Little Wayne, I'm
a fucking man, y'all get it? Do you? Type of
money a body I can like a million, just like
the Whisper song though a three note eight to eight baseline, claps, snares, hats,

(25:29):
that's Bay tempo. It's very Bay Area in the bounce
of it. But it's like it shows like in Texas,
in Texas and in Atlanta and in the Bay Area.
Necessarily like the same sound choice, you know what, I mean?
Three or four ideas with the bounce of that respective city, yes,

(25:51):
the tempo of that respective city. Yes, it's it's that
instinctual and elemental. It's like we can talk about how
certain instruments work better in certain parts of the country,
or certain people respond to horns more in New Orleans
and Atlanta than where they were spond to pianos and
strings in the Midwest. Like, I think the tempo and

(26:14):
the bounce. The bounce and the swing of the records
are like the two things that really make the biggest
difference in every part of the country. Because if you
can get it down to just a base sound in
a clap or something in the two four but just
changed one hundred bpm over here, different the kick hits
a little different in the pattern one hundred thirty bpm

(26:34):
over here and then one fifty over here. It's like
it's really about how people feel and how it moves them,
and maybe the drugs of the city or where people
party in that respective city or how they party or
whatever has something to do with that. But at the
same time, as like there's we've already seen just in

(26:56):
this conversation, how many things trace back to how many
other things the cities that believe in the music and
in the hip hop and see it as a business.
Are the ones where the sound finally takes press and
it's not always where it originated. Yeah, I've heard people
talk about that with Memphis. But if people in Memphis

(27:16):
had the belief in the business of hip hop that
they did in Atlanta, crunk music would have started in
Memphis first, or certain other let's say, just any kind
of niche trend thing could have popped off in the
city where they created it rather than somewhere like the
Bay or a guy like DJ Mustard sees, Oh, this
has the potential to be. That's what That's what the

(27:37):
great artists have always done, though the great artists have
recognized them the local scenes where something's being made that's
really cool, but it's really only for their and they
can take the DNA of that and make it into
something that becomes national totally. And it's always or global
And that's always been It's always been that way. It's

(28:00):
always been even in rock and roll. You know, it's
always been like hearing something and then amplifying it in
a new way and it gets you know, it's like
with Led Zeppelin and the Blues you know, like like
that it had to cross it had to cross the
Atlantic to get that blown up, because anyone, any self

(28:22):
respecting blues artist wouldn't play music that was It'd be
like ridiculous. Yeah, but that's what made it international was
that it like h And also sometimes it's interesting too
that sometimes the misunderstanding of something that you like forces
you to make something that you think you're making something

(28:44):
like what you heard, and then it comes out completely
different just because you're you're hearing it different or you
don't know how to make that stuff and you're just
trying to guess it at the end of the third thing, Yeah,
which is also great, Like a lot of great stuff
happens that way. It was like kind of aiming for
one thing and getting something completely different. We'll be right
back with Kenny Beats after a quick break. We're back

(29:08):
with Rick and Kenny Beats. I think seeing this part
of the matrix is one of my biggest strengths in
any room with people making music, because especially if I'm
in like a very stuffy room with a lot of
top shelf people who are doing very big things and
trying to preemptively figure out what's gonna work really well

(29:29):
for their fan base or whatever. When you come in
a room like that and you play like a kid
like Tissa Korean for example, who's actually now on the
new Chance the Rapper single, but like Tissa months ago
was just making funny music but dancing in it again

(29:51):
from Texas just drums, twenty year old kid who's really
popping the there right now invented a bunch of dance
crazes and stuff. If I play a Tissa Korean video
in a room I'm in with all these really stressed out,
really popping people, instantly it just lightens up the vibe
because now not like, oh, what's the perfect chord change,
it's like, oh, this kid's funny, Like oh this song

(30:14):
is just some big eight O waights and this kid's
rapping super crazy and they're all dancing wild in the video.
Instantly everyone's watching the screen and now it's like, oh,
this gets funny. I imagine we did something like this.
Imagine we tried that tempo I met and it's a
joke at first, yeah, and it's like, oh, well, like
this is an extreme example because Tissa's so off the wall.
But Chance saw this kid somewhere and was like, I

(30:37):
just love his energy. Let me harness it, let me
see what works about his music that I could apply.
And the first single from Chances long awaited album is
featuring Tissa Korean and they dropped it on Triller the
dance app before streaming services because Tissa's so popping in
that world that every little young kid dances to his songs.
But you see how like being aware of these cool,

(31:01):
small regional things like almost help reinspire the people who
are the best at it. But this is coming from
such a place of just like honesty, and like we
literally want an artist I'm working with right now records
all his songs in the garage band on his Apple
microphone on his computer and use all garage band loops
play something. I'm sure his Bubba Savage Old Bubba is

(31:41):
twelve years old from Courtland, av in the Bronx. Little
Oozi's working with him, a Boogie's working with him. All
these huge artists are a fan of him because he
just says whatever he wants. But when you put on
the Buba video in the serious session, kids go, is
that a twelve year old kid rapping about I'll make
you disappear? Like magic? You're like, you know, and then

(32:02):
instantly they start doing You're dealing, We start laughing, it
starts being funny. And then like I was a female
the day, a lot of her music is very cute,
and she heard that piano loop and she's like, oh
my god, I love this. And then I pulled up
a bunch of xylophones. We started working with xylophones, and
we made a real song, you know. And so like
that's why I focus so hard on these things, because

(32:22):
these this is what it's inspiring me. It's not getting
in the room with like the biggest genius ever of
all time and then showing me how to make a
record to reach a billion people. It's what's happening in
this small, small corner of the country that makes those
people from that part of the country erupt in a
different way than the fans of the biggest artists ever.

(32:44):
Like when something's for you from you, by you, you
know what I mean, where you grew up, Like a
party in the Bay with all Bay artists with two
hundred people in a basement is an uncomparable energy to me.
And like people who play big shows, there's always the
conversation of like would you rather play for twenty thousand
people or two hundred of your best fans in the

(33:05):
world in this one room, and like it's clearly going
to be better than with the two hundred people. I mean,
for sure, I think the ladder is always it And
that's how I look at this. It's like I never
choose an artist I'm working with because if they're young
and popping, or because they have a certain wave anywhere.
I just like what I like and like giving context
to people is my number one goal. Is like just

(33:29):
helping someone understand why this is so cool where it
is and why I latched onto it even though I'm
not from there, it might not fully get it. When
you can have an artist like Gez and Cardi b
an Asap Rocky put out a song like No Limit
and then kids figure out that that slab of my
knob and all of a sudden they're listening to three
six Mafia, It's like, that's so cool to me, you know,

(33:53):
I love that because it's just raps are to become
one of the biggest genres in the world, you know
what I mean. Like from the time that you started
def jam all the way to right now, It's like,
I don't know if anyone ever saw this like it's
nobody did. It's insane nobody, But I think it's so much,
so many waves of it, just like feeling like it

(34:17):
was going away, like over and over again. It's it's
it's because of what we're talking about. Though. I think
that's why rap has become as big as it's become
is because it's just like it transports you. Whatever artists
you're listening to, it transports you to where they're from
and how they grew up. And even if now they're gigantic,
whenever they started their first music as always the truest,

(34:38):
most authentic storytelling you can find in music. For me
right now, you know, I love to hear the stories
of all these different places and for me to try
to help add to those stories without really doing my
due diligence, yes, I think that would be misguided and
I think I'd be hurting more than i'd be helping.
It's crazy. Any theories on why, um, why Miami based

(35:01):
music was so particular there, like when everyone in the
country was was going slow, Yeah, they were always fast.
It was always cocaine. I don't know. I don't know,
it just always was fast. I'm not a Miami guy.
Like going from New York and listening going to a
hip hop club in New York to a hip hop

(35:22):
club in Miami, every song would be there. You would
not one of the same songs would play in the
two cities. Yeah, I mean, does it has to do
with the street life, has to do with how fast
paced Miami is and how much money there is there
and how new the development was going out. That's like,
I just think that Citi's I've always not liked Miami

(35:43):
because it's all lambos and beautiful girls in gowns and
all this money and all this stuff. It's like the
music must have lended itself to the scene in some
type of way where people realize the faster we go,
the more reaction we're getting out of people. But a
lot of stuff that went on in Miami base slowed down.
Is juke or is Bounce or is Baltimore Club or

(36:05):
is whatever? It's same breaks, same as sample play, a
juke feel. It's very two live crew in the sound
choice and in the sample choice, and then you listen
to two live crew, But that still sounded more like discoy,

(36:27):
like more from the floor or on the floor. Mummy
bass was not really like that, but the tempo was
like it was just fast. Yeah, come on, yeah, she's
all rooted in the planet rob Yeah, for sure it is.
But again it's drum machines. You know. What I mean

(36:47):
is no breaks. It's like a very electronic thing in
the scope of hip hop. Yeah. I had discussion with
a friend the other day who was talking about that.
In today's world, the sound is considered part of the writing.
So in other words, if you were if you were
called in as a producer and you changed the snaw

(37:09):
a sound from the existing snad without changing the pattern,
if you just replaced the existing snare sound in the
track with a different sound, that you would be a
writer of the song. Is that the case from what
I understand? Yes, would never name names, But I had
a good friend of mine who was signed to a
very big producer, and his contract with that producer was

(37:31):
if you drop a song completely produced and written and
everything by you and the people involved, he gets fifteen
percent of it, just as you being signed to him,
and if he adds one thing to that beat or
anything at all, he touches it. In programs on it,
he's taking eighty percent of the song. And what he
would do was just basically just like take the midi
of a high hat pattern and change the high hat

(37:52):
sound and then all of a sudden he's involved and
now he owns all of your share. That is wild. Yeah,
try to keep my friends from signing any of those
kind of contracts. But it is, it is like that
these days because sound choice is so paramount. When you
think about a song like Grinding, you know by Farrell
a long time ago, but literally it's just drums, you

(38:15):
know what I mean, Like like a lot of stuff
we talked about today, it's really like just this big
instinctual kind of rhythm. And so if someone changes yo yo,
if someone changes that clap, that's twenty percent of the beat.

(38:37):
It is what it is. It's like the example I
was saying before about like samples this Farrell. This that
little a that Farrell used to use all the time.
It's from the Triton keyboard, the most popular keyboard in

(39:01):
hip hop, and like the early two thousands, it's just
a sound on the Triton. So it's Yamaha. It's not
owned by Farrell. Even though we've heard it in clip songs,
Snoop Dogg songs, ANYRD songs, Rihanna songs, all types of
gigantic Neptunes production because it was just a key piece
of perk for them that they use all that time, percussion.
Like to me, I got it. I got my hands

(39:23):
on it a while ago, and when someone asked me, like,
like I remember working on a Vince Staple's album, he
would say, like, I want something that feels kind of neptunesy,
but I don't want to like take from it or
I don't want to use the same patterns. And I
was like, man, like, if I could just get the
A from some of the Farrell stuff, it immediately puts
you back to Neptunes, back to Timbo era. And so
I found it, and then I found out it was

(39:44):
from a keyboard, and I'm like, Okay, Ferrell doesn't own this,
and I can't get in trouble for sampling this, but
it's a Farrell sound, you know what I mean as
far as I'm concerned, or like, even when you go
back and listen to like the chant that's in that's
in like every Mustard beat, every Juicy J thing, like
every it's it doesn't even trace back to a break.

(40:07):
It traced back to like, uh, what was it? Like?
It's like house beats and loops, like Volume three, like
the I think the original is Yellow Yellow y Ell.
Is it a song? No, it's a group from England,
like an electronic group from the eighties, but they had
the sound. It's just it's just the chant. I can't

(40:29):
remember what song it is, so I can't. I can't
tell you. It's been a while, hold on the mustard.
But but you hear it and everything from California and
everything from Detroit and a lot of old Southern stuff.
You hear the chant on the off beat and Little
John beats and stuff like that, and it's like, man,
that's a classic sound in hip hop. But you get worried.
You're like, man, I've heard it in so much stuff.

(40:50):
If I sample in my own trouble and sometimes it's
like hard to find the lineage of these sounds. And
now that so much of these beats is made up
in the sound choice, you got to be careful. Like
the main standpoint is I don't want this song to
not come out because this is a kick that they
can trace back to a record that I might be
sample or like an eight O eight that might be stolen,

(41:11):
and then due to the user license agreement from the website,
I bought the eight to eight from this is technically
not my copyright. Like there's all kinds of weird little
things like that sounds are the name of the game
now it's not really records, but like the metadata and
all these sounds exists, and I don't know, Like for me,
I like really pride myself on hoarding sounds and just

(41:34):
having terabytes and terabytes and hard drives and hard drives
of just sounds, and the more I can learn about
like the lineage of them, easier it is for me
to use them and apply them. We'll be back with
Kenny Beats after a quick break. We're back with the
rest of Rick's conversation with Kenny Beats. Do you ever

(41:57):
see there being an evolution lyrically in hip hop of
it not being not all being so similar in content?
I don't find it to be really no. The amount
of stuff, the amount of people I work with, it's
every day. If I have, say, have two sessions a
day for a whole week, I probably got five six

(42:20):
perspectives that don't understand each other. Yeah, for sure. And
like I've rat like nowadays, it's even harder now because
I'd never base something on a personality or like anything
other than the music. I'm like, if I love this music,
I want to help this person to work on it.
And then I start working with them and I realized, like, oh,
your past is trouble. Then you're like industry business stuff

(42:42):
is all messed up and this and that, And I
don't always do my research, but a lot of times,
like whoever I get in with, I need to figure
out how to understand their perspective quickly. And if I
only had two or three perspectives or contents or like
things that I had to be weary of when I
got with an artist, my job would be way easier.
And it's not easy because someone from New Orleans comes

(43:04):
in and everything I just learned last week from a
New York artist does not apply here. Can you always
understand all the slang like the local slang at first?
But I ask, I don't pretend to, Yes, that's the
biggest thing. Don't ever either use a term you're not
comfortable with or even try to like pretend you understand it.

(43:25):
Ask if you there's no time, or you say to
someone what does that mean? They're gonna go oh? He said,
what does that mean? Like that, no one's ever gonna
do that. They're gonna go oh, bro. It means this, yeah,
like if you try to or from where I'm from,
how would you know that? Yeah? Of course? And Atlanta.
The biggest term right now is cap or no cap,
and it means like you're lying, like a cap is lying,
I mean, And basically if someone says like no cap,

(43:48):
it means like I'm not lying. I would never walk
into a room and be like, yo, I swear I
sent the files no cap. It doesn't sound right coming
out of my mouth. It's not for me. I'm not
from Atlanta, but I grew up in New York, and
trust me, Like my friends say hi to each other,
they say you're. They don't say yo, they literally yo you're.
And it's just a New York thing. It's like there's
different slang from different places, and if you're not from

(44:10):
that place, unless you're around those people all the time, Like,
don't even pretend you understand what it means. I was
in a studio one time with a really really like
a producer. I'm a big fan of from Atlanta, and
he just goes bro, do you know what Jay's are like?
When someone said when he said Jay's in that song,
you know he's talking about and I was thinking in
my head, I was like, here's he talking about police officers?

(44:31):
Maybe he said Jay's at the door was the line,
and I was like, Jay, what is that He's talking about?
A junkie? Oh, I didn't know that. My first reaction
was a police officer. I clearly was the exact opposite.
I thought they were saying, cops at my door. I
gotta get out of their type shit. He was talking,
there's junkies there. I'm serving drugs to junkies, you know
what I mean? The whole at the lex three lines

(44:52):
before and after it gets switched out on the context
because I wasn't aware of a one letter slang term. Yeah,
the songs from my favorite artist in Detroit that got
me into them, that made me start listening to him.
I didn't even understand them until I worked with the artists. Yeah,
and I loved I loved these songs. Yeah, I know
every word, but I don't know everyone's talking about sometimes,

(45:15):
you know, general stuff everybody gets and that's I think
the common denominator of the money stuff. And you know
what that's like though, when when you're a little kid
and you hear music, you don't really know what the
words mean, but you still love it. If you don't
know all those words, you know in in everything, you
don't know all the words, you don't know what they're
talking about. My favorite band was Kiss when I was
a toddler. All I listened to his Kiss songs. It's

(45:37):
just the music spoke to me. It wasn't the words.
You know, how did you get How did you end
up getting into Kiss in the nineties, that's a funny
time to get into Kiss. My dad's an audio file.
My dad listens. If he's an audio file, he wouldn't
be listening to kid No. Yeah, but I'm just saying
he listens to everything. So across my childhood, like my
dad would literally play me a Boz Skag song, and

(45:57):
then play me a Commander Cody song, and then play
me the Chronic and then a Cheryl Crow song will
be in the radio and he would like it, and
then he'd play me like a Grateful Dead or whatever
it was. So stuff have come across my plate. And
when I heard I Just want to rock and roll
all night as a four year old, I was like,
this is music. It's great, A great recognize my two

(46:18):
favorite songs that year because I there's a videotape of
me like talking about it. Are I just want to
have fun shell Crow and all I want to do
is rock and roll all night? By Kiss, I was
in a very similar mind space. But yeah, like I
don't know, like, but those are anthems, you know for sure.
I think at four years old, like you, that's when

(46:39):
you start to recognize a good anthem. Yeah, but at
to say, like I grew up with my I played
instruments a lot of my life, so I had to
play music that lend itself to instruments. Played classic rock
and played jam band stuff and fusion stuff and funk
and soul because bands, yeah a little bit, But there
wasn't that much of a scene for in Connecticut I had.

(47:00):
I had a amount of friends in one hand, I
coul account who really played music and did music in
their free time. It was all sports. But uh, my
dad was never ironic about liking hip hop or like
liking what was on the radio and so like, I
remember the Thong song. He just thought it had such
great production, Like you would always talk about that. He
would talk about the beat of the Thong song and

(47:21):
not be funny because it's a song about like a
kind of bathing suit or kind of underwear, and it's
like the big ass song of the year. My dad
was just like he just loved the song. And my
dad would sing it un ironically and he'd be singing
that dong dong dong dong, and You're like, this is
so dumb. But I would see in his face he's
like he would see me laughing at him and be like,
you're just turning to me kind of like I'm not

(47:42):
I'm not making fun of this song. I like this song.
So I had an appreciation via him for the stuff
that my friends were listening to and that I had
around me all the time as being really good music.
So even something that would be a novel to many people,
that would be a novelty song, if it was well made,
it would still be good it. It didn't have to

(48:03):
be the cool song totally. Yeah. But like my dad
was listening to West Coast hip hop and listening to
a current things that were on the radio with me
on top of showing me all this other music. And
I grew up in Connecticut, so I had I was seamless.
I was regionless as far as there was no music coming.
There still isn't any music coming from where I grew up.
New York was the closest thing I had, and when

(48:25):
I was old enough, I spent all my time in
New York. But I really grew up without a core regional.
Really good though, because that way you're not pigeonholed into totally,
you know, being brainwashed into one sound as being your sound. Yeah,
so you really are free. It's so interesting how how
the things like in the moment you probably as a

(48:46):
kid would wish everybody played and there was a scene
and there were clubs to play in, and how come,
you know, people get to do that in other places
and I don't get to do that. But it really
formed who you are now, and maybe you wouldn't be
the same producer you are today if it was if
it wasn't for that. I think that's the first thing
you and I ever talked about, was it. Yeah, Like

(49:06):
when we first talked in your car, Like I remember
just saying like I remember growing up and just wishing
I had more money. You know, I had a bigger
friend and had my friend's house and lived in a
place where everybody did music and dad dada, and now
I just turned twenty eight. Now, at twenty eight, I
literally would never trade places with anybody. I'm so glad
I don't have that that obstacle in my mind of like, oh, well,

(49:30):
this is what I'm supposed to be doing, or this
is where I'm from. It's like my metal phase was
just as long as my like Leonard skinnerd phase is
just as long as my Dilla phase. You know what
I mean? They all, That's what I'm saying. They shared
equal parts in my mind, And like I think a
lot of my friends at least now, who make a
lot of music and have made music as they were kids,

(49:50):
they always have this dichotomy of like, here's the music
my dad showed me and my parents showed me and
all this old stuff I was put onto, and then
here's the music I listened to with my friends. And
that's definitely true, because that's how you find out about
a lot of stuff. But the music I listened to
with my friends wasn't written off by my dad and like, oh, yeah,
that's that's what's on the radio now. My dad would
hear certain things and be like, jay Z's really way

(50:13):
better than everybody else. Huh, you know what I mean,
Like he would see he would understand enough to like
really dive into totally. And I think that was many
people as they get older, only they only like the
music that they liked as a as a as a
kid or a teenager. Yeah, that's sort of the rest
of their lives. That's their music. So like that, My
appreciation has always been that just for everything. Everything like

(50:35):
what you like, you know, and it doesn't matter. You're
not from a place that lends itself to anything, so
you can like everything from everywhere. Yes, I never had
the moment in my career and like my music making life,
where I got popular doing a specific thing or a
specific sound. It was never like, Oh, it's this kid

(50:55):
from New York with a working with all these New
York artists and he's got that sound right now, so
let's try to put him with some other artists and
see if that fits with them. My whole life has
always been whatever this project is or this person is,
I'm that chameleon today and then tomorrow. I'm this Yes,
That's why I've forced myself to learn about all the
things that go on. But like a lot of my

(51:15):
favorite producers and the biggest producers doing it today have
found this lane, like thinking about take Keith. Take Keith
is probably the biggest producer out of Memphis ever at
this point last year, the amount of singles he had
and the amount of number ones and everything like, He's
doing everything from Drake to Travis to Beyonce, and he
is the most Memphis beat maker you could ever be.

(51:37):
It is the most three six Mafia influence you could
ever be. And he's taken his sound to the nth degree.
Is Beyonce forming her style and her current outlook on
what her new music needs to be around this kid's
drum patterns and tempos and what he's doing, Because what
he's doing is such a cultural phenomenon right now. Can

(51:58):
you play what would have been the tracks that the
older tracks he made that inspired these people to want
to work with you. This is the first one she
called shoot by Blackboy JB, also from Memphis. Baswin in
mo I hit the first role freaking bits on Go
See Gone off the roll and without anything. Just listen

(52:19):
to a three six Mafia beat right after that. I
gotta say, even though in three six Mafia it's much

(52:40):
more of a sample, more soulful vibe, that's always what
their stuff was, you can tell that Take Heath was
influenced by extremely on the beat quantize straight hat, straight
kick patterns, sharp ass snares, and it's the music is
very faint comparatively how big the drums are way more
so now with Take Heath. But even in three six Mafia,

(53:00):
it's much more about hearing that hat and that eight
oh weight than it is about those strings or any
of those samples or in a Dyla thing or a
boom Bat thing, like you're gonna hear what's going on
in the sample very upfront. But Take Keith is so
routed and where he's from, founded artist, where he's from
in Block Boy, that that song Shoot just became a phenomenon.

(53:20):
There was a dance that went with it. That dance
is now in Fortnite and in every video game, and
it is a huge thing. It's whenever you like pound
your arm forwards and kick your leg back at the
same time, you see everybody always doing it, little kids
do it all the time. That dance was founded by
this artist, helped blow up the song Take Keith made
one hundred percent of his beats. The next song that
they did after that song Shoot, which I played, was

(53:44):
block Boy and Drake and let me see just what
it's at right now. Yeah, it's at two hundred and
seventy nine million views on YouTube. The which Drake getting
on the Take Keith and Blockboys song, and it's like
it's the most regional thing in the world. It's specifically Memphis.

(54:05):
All Takekeeth was working on was like artists from where
he's from, and then all of a sudden, Drake gets
on it. It puts eyes onto it in a different way.
Then all of a sudden he's doing Travis Scott Records
featuring Drake, which are amalgamations of three different beats which
change how radio sounds. It's the first like number one
single to ever be that weird with all those different songs,

(54:28):
and it broke all these records, and it all evolved
from what he was doing in Memphis based on old
three six Mafia stuff to try to make everyone around
him go, oh, that's hard. And now it's Beyonce. It's amazing,
and there's a lot of stuff you can break, all
these different types of rap music and all these niche
shub genres into. But I think the main thing is

(54:48):
going to be, like if you go back to the
first iterations of all of it, Like we said before,
they only had so many tools, so many drum machines
and so many things you could get across, and really
the feel and the bounce and the tempo and those
things are what dictated now styles that are a vastly

(55:10):
different and fully formed and evolved. And it always like, men,
we ten of us got ten drum machines and ten
parts of the country. We got to make ten different
crowds rock. This one drum machine with this one pattern
does not work in half these places. We got to
figure out what works here. Yeah, And now, like I'm
still trying to do that same thing, but I've just
got a lot of history that I've got to pay

(55:31):
respect to. Beautiful cool Man. Thanks to Kenny Beats for
breaking down the origins of regional hip hop sounds for us.
Be sure to check out next week's episode, where we'll
hear all that Kenny has been up to since him
and Rick Last back to see Kenny Beats in action.
Check out the two seasons of his show The Cave

(55:53):
that he has up on YouTube. But he sits down
with artists and makes it beat specifically tailored to them
on the spot. It's incredible. Also, be sure to check
out a playlist of songs produced by Kenny Beats that
we put together at broken Record podcast dot com. You
can follow us on YouTube, YouTube dot com, slash broken
Record Podcast, where we can find extended cuts of new

(56:13):
and old episodes, and follow us on Twitter at broken Record.
Broken Record is produced Helpful Leah Rose, Jason Gambrel, Martin Gonzalez,
Eric Sandler, and Jennifer Sanchez, with engineering help from Nick
Chafee and our executive producer is Meio LaBelle. Broken Record
is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you like a show,
please remember to share, rate, and review us on your

(56:35):
podcast staff. Our theme music based on the Beastie Boys
Brass Monkey, is by today's guest, the uncomparable Kenny Beats.
I'm justin Richmond.