Kenny Beats

“Since he was 17 years old in Atlanta, I think people always knew that there was something different about Key. He's obviously been able to adapt to so many sounds and time periods in his own way, which is clear from the long list of collaborators; but he has always retained an effortlessly weird perspective.”

“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.”

“There's a difference between a beatmaker and a producer.”

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

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

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

“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 biggest thing Rick Rubin taught me is that you don't get any extra credit by doing everything yourself.”

“I started a group called Loudpvck, which I do by myself now, and toured the whole world.”

“Rap music's the only thing that ever mattered.”

“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.”

“Greedo taught me a lot. I don't say that about every artist. Some artists might teach me stuff musically, but Greedo taught me stuff about being a man and being a musician and being a creative, and being different from other people.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Making assumptions taught me a lot as a producer, because it's something I never do now.”

“I heard Idles and was like this is all I want to work on, this is all I want to do, these guys are the best. I got into their DMs and told them that and luckily we got to meet and the proof is in the pudding.”

“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 started making beats in high school.”

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

“At the end of the day I'm not just sending beats in. I'm mixing the song. I'm recording the song. I'm engineering the song. I'm in the studio helping with the songwriting. I'm doing the whole beat - every single piece of it is me.”