Metro Boomin Vinyl, CD & Tape 3 Items

A producer tag taking over the mainstream

“If Young Metro don’t trust you, I’m gon’ shoot you.” A producer tag marking the territory of fresh hip hop star Metro Boomin, gaining notoriety through tracks by Future and Kanye West, and even becoming a meme, has suggested the young producer’s influence early on. Hailing from St. Louis, he has shaped the Atlanta sound and rosen at a rapid pace to become one of the most important people in the genre by the end of the 2010s. His portfolio of collaborations could hardly be more comprehensive, so extensively has the beatmaker infiltrated the rap mainstream with his creations: his career counts collaborations with greats like Wiz Khalifa, Nicki Minaj, Ludacris, DJ Khaled, The Weeknd, and countless others. At the same time, his most significant and ongoing collaboration is probably with that rapper who, back then, intoned Boomin‘s acoustic signature in the studio on a whim: the musical work with Future took off in 2013, after the 19-year-old Metro Boomin had made a name for himself in the local scene. At the time, he was still being driven by his mom in the car down to Atlanta every week, where he dove into trap circles and built connections. But he also sent his Fruity Loops produced beats to like-minded rappers over the Internet, and while he wasn’t making any money yet, he was earning a lot of respect.

Trap expert and hit guarantor

Subsequently, Metro Boomin produced, among other things, for Future’s album Honest in 2013, and shortly thereafter released his own mixtape 19 & Boomin, which, of course, featured Future and Young Thug. Discussions about a joint record with the latter were held, but the project was discarded after a few tracks. Instead, the young producer went on to work on Future’s and Drake’s What A Time To Be Alive in 2015, and a year later he contributed to Kanye West’s The Life Of Pablo. In addition, he sporadically produced for Ludacris, Gucci Mane, Travis Scott, and other colleagues. His work culminated in a new career highlight with Future’s single Mask Off, which became an international success and even familiar to hip hop outsiders with its catchy flute melody. The fact that the trap expert had become a hit guarantor became clear with the track X, which he recorded with 21 Savage for the collabo EP Savage Mode. From this point on, he began releasing big trap numbers on an assembly line, and his records with Big Sean, Kodak Black and Post Malone, released in 2017, proved his effortless prowess.

The architect of Atlanta rap

He also shone on his first solo album Not All Heroes Wear Capes in 2018 – a guest-filled long-player that showcased him in his element and his role as a pioneer of the modern hip hop sound, the whole thing repeated in 2022 with HEROES & VILLAINS. He then landed a number one hit with The Weeknd’s Heartless, and even collected a Grammy nomination for his collaboration on Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres. The extent of Boomin’s creative work in the music industry was also demonstrated by the founding of his own record label, Boominati Worldwide – in view of his success, the name of the label was hardly megalomaniacal. The “architect of Atlanta rap,” as GQ calls the beatmaker, has enjoyed such massive success because he is good at adapting to the times: “The ones that get left behind are the ones that are ignorant to that or might just be stuck in their ways like, ‘Nah, we’re the 2015 crew. We’re the superior musicheads.‘ Things are always gonna grow and change, so you’ve got to grow and change with it,” he notes. After all, the music of his childhood wasn’t trap either, but oldschool à la Nelly. That ethos of change applies equally to his producer tags, not least on Drake’s and 21 Savage’s recent track More M’s: “Metro in this bitch goin’ brazy!”