Beau: To have your first placement with Logic
and Eminem is crazy.
When we’re working, it’s just like all
we’re thinking about, especially before
then was just like, “Yo.
Have no money, we need to go go go.”
And it’s just a matter of beat after beat
after beat after beat.
Uribe: As a first placement to have Logic
and Em on a record, it’s a stamp.
It’s a validation to say like, we can succeed
at a high level.
Beau: All of us are musicians.
We didn't have a goal or aspect like do a
producer trio at first.
The beat started out on separate laptops.
We had just got off the phone, and we were
talking.
"Let's get it in."
Let's really bust out a bunch of beats."
Uribe: That day, I could not make a beat to
save my life.
I could not make a melody.
I could not make a bass line.
I could not do anything.
So when I do that, being a drummer before
producing, cool I'll just make some drums.
The best part about having all three of us
is that I got two other guys who can take
this drum loop and turn it into what it turned
into.
Donnii: When we go through stuff, usually
we kind of facilitate what one person might
not be able to feel.
I know that if I put this, they're going to
think this might be cool.
If it doesn't hit, it doesn't hit so, we always
give creative input since we've worked together
for so long.
Uribe: The beat for "Homicide" started with
the main trap drums.
It just started off with a kick and a snare
and a tempo.
I went generic 140, you know?
You can get a good bounce at that tempo.
Just to give it a basic groove, I just threw
eighth note hi-hats on top of it.
There's this stock plug-in
in Ableton, basically gives it random velocity
so that the hi-hats aren't just the same volume
the whole time.
So I'll tweak it until I like the way the
bounce sounds.
I added some more hi-hats for the rolls,
but I also added this stock Ableton panning
plugin.
I think it just gives it a little bit more
ear candy, especially there’s a lot of room
in the kick and the snare.
The hi-hats are really the thing that’s
driving the rest of the beat.
At this point, I’m doing this thing where
I go into Kontakt by Native Instruments and
I’m taking their live hi-hat sounds and
then I’m playing a pattern on top of it.
The live hats by itself just sound…
And then when you layer it with the other
hi-hats, it sounds way more full.
There’s one more hi-hat, just an open hi-hat,
more trap open hi-hat.
I feel like it just gave it a unique bounce,
a different type of trap bounce.
That was pretty much the whole drum loop and
then from there I just passed it along.
Beau: Hearing it, the biggest thing for me
was that I liked the rim a lot and I liked
the natural hi-hats over it.
I was stumbling through my hard drive and
forgot we had made some old samples to see
if there was anything salvageable.
A majority of it was trash, but I know this
one thing I was like, “Oh cool.
Yeah.
I still rock with this.”
So I pulled it up and through it in Serato.
I pitched it up really high just ‘cause
I really liked when the 808 hits or when the
kick hits, the frequency for that bottom end
is gonna really stand out.
Went on to the next part of the sample and
just pitched it an octave down.
Uribe: I feel like it sets the tone too, for
the intro of the record to come in with that
dark sound.
There’s one more sound, two more sounds
that he contributed in this.
Beau: I was making a beat for one of the rappers
we work with, Ice Cold Bishop, and one of
the beats he had I was hearing a bark or a
ruff and I’m like, instead of going through
my hard drive and trying to find it, I usually
will just take out my phone and pull up the
voice memo app.
Uribe: This is the voice memo completely raw.
Sorry if you say anything weird in this.
All you have to do is just cut off the last
thing, and not even add anything on it.
It was solid the way it was.
Going into that bark, he has this reverse
kick, just to kind of lead into it.
Sounds like this.
Donnii: We had these breaks that we had gotten
from Drum Broker, particularly this individual
named Shroom.
I had kind of had that in mind once Beau linked
me with the track.
And I was thinking this would just be perfect
to use.
Just that natural boom bap.
And I was just like messing with it a few
different ways to kind of give it its own
sound.
I had used a Bitcrusher, to kind of give it
that crunch to it.
Stretched it out just to kind of give it that
half time sort of feel.
I just wanted it to sound dusty, like that
was my biggest thing, just kind of give it
that dusty, crunchy feel.
The record sounded so cool with the drums
and everything.
Once I had the Shroom break in there, it was
just kind of at the point of just adding the
808.
I feel like 808s is always the icing on the
cake for songs that we do.
Uribe: Once we got all of our sounds put together,
the drums, the sample, the bark, the 808,
the Shroom drums, everything put together,
it sounded like this.
Uribe: Going into this, it was a lot of rough
times of knowing, “I’m not sure if this
will work.”
But like, we all have faith, and we thank
God that we got this opportunity.
Uribe: It’s changed our lives for sure,
‘cause there’s definitely a different
way that people are looking at us now, and
for us it’s like...I mean, we’re just
making beats.
You know what I mean?
When you get to Eminem’s verse, there’s
more in the beat.
And that’s from Eminem’s camp.
Beau: They added some orchestral instruments,
choir, low-end brass, and stuff.
It came out really cool.
Beau: None of us thought like…
Uribe: This is the one!
Beau: This is the one bro!
Uribe: Yo, shut it down.
Call your mom.
It’s over.
Beau: Yeah like, it’s never those.
Uribe: We just get a conference call from
our manager Austin, and he’s like “Yo,
they really like it.”
That’s the end of that conversation.
Fast-forward a couple weeks later, “Hey,
even better news.
Turns out that it’s probably gonna make
the album.”
And then fast-forward even further, then they’re
like “Yo, this might be a single for the
Logic album.”
We’re like, “Nah, nah!”
Hearing the end result definitely changed
all of our perspectives, I’ll tell you that
much.
Beau: It’s our favorite beat!
Uribe: Yeah! Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Beau: Logic had released that post.
It says "Homicide" featuring Eminem.
We were like "Holy shit."
Uribe: It's actually crazy.
We did a little pool of bets right before
because we knew it was a feature, but we didn't
know who, and he actually got it, which was
crazy.
How do you guess that?
