KENNY BEATS

Being genre-bending doesn't really cross my mind. I don't consider anyone I work with a specific genre.

You need to make people think about society in a less literal and more primal way. It's about using the least amount of sounds to make the most amount of noise and energy, and making a bass stab really feel like you've been punched in the face.

The real producers back in the day didn't sit there and play every single instrument. They made sure the record had the best performance out of everyone involved possible.

I get hit up all the time from every verified rapper with 1,000,000 followers like, 'Yo bro! You got the sauce right now. Send me beats!' Naw, that takes everything away from what I do.

I think a lot of people make a big misstep when they assume what an artist is going to be interested in, so I try to just take that out of the equation and make sure whenever I'm talking to people about their music, I'm getting all my context clues from that - and then we go to work.

Most of these producers have an agenda of what they want to push or what they think will be hot for someone. I don't have an agenda. My agenda is to take someone and bring out their dreams, what they're hearing in their head.'

Every time I'm working on something, I'm extremely excited about it.

When I make a lot of really good music with someone, I want to let the world hear it right now; unfiltered. I don't think it has to be more complicated than that.

Lil Jon was definitely a pioneer for some of the punk-rap acts we see now. He showed you could scream on a song and still have a hit on the radio.

Key! is the greatest rapper alive. I honestly, truly believe that no one is as effortless, weird, and creative, and themselves as he has been for years and years.

When people are saying something to you, you gotta listen to them.

Many times you make music and someone decides to try and pick the best of everything. But if you wait, you sometimes fall out of love, or a song doesn't speak to you anymore, so you lose the moment.

I've been doing music in some form since I was seven years old.

I'm a very self-sufficient person, much like a lot of people I work with.

Greedo is one of the most important California artists of our generation.

I am friends with the most amazing musicians that can do pop, rap, punk and jazz.

I always had this ego where if I ever wanted to come back to doing rap, I could do that. That was not true. I would get stuck, I would be in a room and someone would ask me for something and I didn't have it.

I never was able to pay any type of bill doing the music that I was instinctually was making 'cause I loved it. I had to kind of pivot into doing the stuff that someone had taught me about to really get on my feet.

You don't have to be best friends with people to make music.

I played guitar since I was 9 years old, drums since I was 11.

I got way more songs with Key! than Greedo, but I met them via each other, they Facetimed me at 6 A. M. in Atlanta, wearing sunglasses. Key! said, 'You and Greedo doing a whole project.' And I was like, 'Alright.' Then they hung up on me.

The point of '777' is for the world to hear adult Key. Your favorite new rapper's favorite rapper, grown up. My job was to lay any canvas he needed at any given moment.

I've never seen Key think about how he was going to act on a song. He just is whoever he is that day.

You go to a Rico Nasty show and there's gay people, trans people, white people and black people all in the mosh pit together, and it's beautiful.

I had to learn how to bring the best outta Key! by learning what's going on with him. That's how I approach every artist I work with, period.