![\"boi-1da-drake-in-the-charts\"](\"https:\/\/splice.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/boi-1da-drake-in-the-charts-dip-013119.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\u201cMake sure you put this one on lock for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
A quick recording session amongst collaborators, some messing around with Omnisphere and Splice, and one hit record with Drake later, Boi-1da earned six Grammy nominations this year and a win for Best Rap Song for producing “God’s Plan.” The prolific hip hop producer has a track record of hits that many only dream of, all of them culminating in a Producer of the Year nomination for his work on Billboard-charting records by Drake, Cardi B, Beyonc\u00e9, Jay-Z, and more.<\/p>\n
Far from the hills and sunshine of Los Angeles where the Grammy Awards took place is a small town in Ontario called Ajax, where Matthew Jehu Samuels (aka Boi-1da) grew up after relocating from Kingston, Jamaica. His father raised him on a healthy diet of dancehall and reggae, and his mother bought him his first Casio keyboard. In his teenage years, however, he ventured on his own and began experimenting with making beats.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got started with music in 2002 – I was 15,\u201d he says. \u201cI always had a love for music. I always had an interest in beats.\u201d A friend eventually introduced him to FruityLoops, and after using his mom\u2019s credit card to buy a copy, it became, in his words, an addiction. \u201cThere would be times in the summer where I was not outside at all,\u201d he continues. \u201cAll my friends were at parties doing stuff that normal teenagers do, and I was in my basement, like, tweaking sounds and trying to figure out how to chop samples up.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Feeling confident in his newfound endeavor, he began showing friends and other kids at school the work he was putting out, and they encouraged him to enter local beat battles happening in Toronto. At 17, he signed up for his first competition and was nerve-wracked. \u201cIt was literally a bunch of grown men talking about the equipment they use, like, \u2018I use an ASR 1045 726 Module.’ I didn\u2019t know what anybody was talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n
The nascent talent went on to win three consecutive competitions, leveraging the success to make connections in the Toronto music scene, including a fellow producer named D10. D10 was another instrumentalist and producer, who was working at a restaurant at the time. D10 would play piano, and a young MC who also worked at the restaurant would perform alongside him. D10 encouraged Boi-1da to check out the young rapper, often talking him up at length until Boi-1da finally caved and checked him out.<\/p>\n
The MC\u2019s name was Aubrey Graham, now known to the world as Drake, back then just an aspiring rapper, occasionally rolling a wheelchair down the halls of Degrassi High. \u201cFrom the first song I heard,\u201d Boi-1da says, \u201cI was like, \u2018Yo, this guy is great.’\u201d<\/p>\n
A few missed encounters and plans to collaborate over a handful of MSN Messenger chats later, Drake and Boi-1da finally linked up to produce \u201cDo What You Do.\u201d \u201cThis was before OVO,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was just us – just me, Drake, and D10, in the studio.\u201d He explains how their first track came together. \u201cDrake just came in and he liked the beat and started writing, like immediately. He was like, \u2018Yo, I got something for this. I got, like, a verse and a hook.\u2019 And then he rapped it and went in the booth and recorded it and I was like, ‘Yo, this shit is crazy.’ Just the energy of that whole night was nuts and ever since I was just like – me and this guy, we’ve got to lock in. We’ve got to figure it out man. This is the guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"boi-1da-drake-in-the-charts\"](\"https:\/\/splice.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/boi-1da-drake-in-the-charts-1-013119.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Boi-1da went on to also produce \u201cCity is Mine\u201d and \u201cMake Things Right\u201d on Drake\u2019s 2006 mixtape Room for Improvement.<\/em> The best, however, was yet to come. In 2009, Drake scored his US top-10 single with \u201cBest I Ever Had,\u201d produced by Boi-1da and built around a Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynold sample from \u201cFallin\u2019 in Love.\u201d The phone calls from producers and rappers began pouring in.<\/p>\n Boi-1da\u2019s curriculum vitae of rap hits has since grown exponentially, with a number of chart toppers to boot. He\u2019s had his hand in producing the Billboard-topping \u201cNot Afraid\u201d by Eminem (2010), \u201cHigh School\u201d by Nicki Minaj (2013), \u201cThe Blacker The Berry\u201d by Kendrick Lamar (2015), \u201cReal Friends\u201d by Kanye West (2016), and many more. With a past rooted in hip hop and a heritage rooted in Jamaican music, Boi-1da\u2019s sound evolved, grew, and developed, resulting in tracks like \u201cWork\u201d by Rihanna and Drake, which incorporated flairs of dancehall into his unique spin on pop music and scored Boi-1da his second #1 hit.<\/p>\n Despite this string of successes with countless other A-listers, Boi-1da stays tied to his Toronto roots and continues playing a hand in every single Drake project since the days of their MSN chats. The aptly-titled \u201cMob Ties,\u201d an ode to the Cosa Nostra-like familial loyalty the cutthroat music industry demands, is the latest of Drake and Boi-1da\u2019s collaborations off 2018\u2019s Scorpion<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe approach leading into Scorpion<\/em> wasn\u2019t any different [as usual],\u201d Boi-1da tells us. \u201cHe’ll shoot ideas to me and he’ll be like, \u2018Sample this. Try to make something that sounds like this.’ I just try to accommodate what he wants to do and try my best to bring it out.” Often, it\u2019s less about the explicit idea and more about a vibe. \u201cMusic is a mood thing, especially for him. Whatever mood he’s in, you just have to have the right idea at the right time. If you catch the right moment with a beat or an idea or a melody, he’ll come around and make something incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMob Ties\u201d came together towards the end of the production cycle for Scorpion<\/em>. Boi-1da was joined by collaborators Allen Ritter and vocalist Ashley Turner, another Toronto native. Using FL Studio, the original version of the track was a downtempo, 56 BPM slow burn of a track, built around a guitar melody Ritter had created using Spectrasonics’ Omnisphere. \u201cIt was really, like, slow, almost R&B sounding,\u201d Boi-1da recalls. \u201cAnd then I remember just changing the sound on the guitar, like the main sound, and it just got really aggressive.\u201d He liked how it sounded, so he sped the track up to 86 bpm and added some drums from the Sonny Digital pack on Splice.<\/a><\/p>\n