Metro Boomin

Essential Albums

  • SAVAGE MODE II

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About Metro Boomin

When the boy who would become Metro Boomin (Leland Tyler Wayne, born 1993) decided he was going to get serious about the rap thing, he intercepted his mother after work with a thick green folder—part dossier, part wish list, part five-year plan. Mom was impressed. He’d already been making beats for a few years, pestering A&Rs on Twitter, crowbarring some connections. He’d even gotten paid a few times. By the time he graduated from high school, he and Mom were making eight-hour-long car trips from St. Louis to Atlanta so Metro could work with Gucci Mane and OJ da Juiceman—contingent, of course, on him keeping his spot on the honour roll. A few months into his freshman year at Morehouse, it became clear that the balance was too tough to keep up. Mom chewed him out. But the work—glossy, atmospheric monsters that pushed trap to cinematic extremes—had too much traction to ignore. The green folder bore out. Future (“Mask Off”, “Low Life”), Migos (“Bad and Boujee”), Post Malone (“Congratulations”), 21 Savage (“Bank Account”), Kodak Black (“Tunnel Vision”): Just a sampling of what followed is some of the most definitive rap of the 2010s, tracks that—alongside the work of collaborators and fellow Atlantans Sonny Digital, Southside, TM88 and Zaytoven—reshaped hip-hop’s sound, feel and culture. That Metro tackled longer-form projects—full-length collaborations, executive productions—not only made him unusually well-known for a producer, but suggested a broader vision, a transcending of the day-to-day business of beatmaking in favour of building a movement. After a handful of years sharing top billing and a baker’s dozen of platinum records in the bag, he released his own album, 2018’s NOT ALL HEROES WEAR CAPES, a couple of months past his 25th birthday.

HOMETOWN
United States of America
BORN
16 September 1993
GENRE
Hip-Hop/Rap

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