13 years ago today, Nipsey Hussle priced physical copies of “Crenshaw” at $100, while making the mixtape available to download for free. Within 24 hours, the first 1,000 CDs reportedly sold out. The campaign grew from a simple idea: listeners who had supported him for years might pay enough to help fund his next release without a major label.

Click here to listen to the mixtape.

We spoke with marketing strategist Karen Civil, who has worked with everyone from Lil Wayne to Clipse and helped amplify the campaign behind Nipsey Hussle’s “Crenshaw.” Its $100 price tag made it a cultural landmark and inspired other artists to approach their releases as works of art.

Karen also shared archival photos she took during the “Crenshaw” era, which you can see throughout the article.

The “Crenshaw” package included a numbered, autographed CD and admission to a future show. The $100 price had an unlikely source. A mentor recommended Jonah Berger’s “Contagious,” which described a Philadelphia restaurant’s $100 cheesesteak. The restaurant faced ridicule but attracted prominent customers, and Nipsey decided to try the same price for “Crenshaw.”

Could you tell us more about your role in developing Proud2Pay and how you chose the $100 price?

Honestly, Proud2Pay was something Nipsey already had in mind. He had been having conversations with Ryan Leslie, who created SuperPhone, about connecting directly with his audience. Nipsey was a visionary who would come to his team with ideas and a clear sense of what he wanted to accomplish. Our role was to help amplify that vision through storytelling, media and the right relationships.

The $100 price came from him. He had read Jonah Berger’s book Contagious, which included the story of a $100 cheesesteak at Barclay Prime in Philadelphia. That example stayed with him and helped shape his thinking around the campaign.

He understood that people had other ways to hear the music, including downloading it for free. Purchasing the $100 copy was a choice, and that was the entire premise of Proud2Pay. If you were proud to support him at that level, this was the opportunity.

Did you and Nipsey disagree on anything before the campaign launched?

Yes, and I’m going to be honest about that. When he told me the price, I suggested starting at $50. He asked why I wanted to cut it. The way he explained it, lowering the price reflected the value I was placing on him and the project, which made me think.

I had to examine my own conditioning around Black products and this idea that what we create needs to be less expensive for people to accept it. Why was I placing that limitation on his work before giving people the opportunity to support it?

That was the first and last time I questioned his marketing instincts in that way. He changed how I thought about value, and that lesson stayed with me well beyond the campaign.

Nipsey told XXL that the team saw publicity as the minimum return from the experiment, even if sales fell short. They committed to the $100 price without expecting the first run to sell out.

Were you confident the $100 CDs would sell out, or did you have doubts?

My suggestion to start at $50 tells you there was some hesitation about the price. I’m not going to rewrite that now because we know how successful it became. But once Nipsey explained his thinking, the campaign made sense to me.

He knew the relationship he had built with his audience and believed in their willingness to support him. That gave the team something clear to stand behind. The focus became communicating his vision and giving people the opportunity to respond, rather than letting our own hesitation limit what was possible.

How did you plan the rollout, from the first announcement to the day the CDs went on sale?

Nipsey had a clear vision for Proud2Pay, and the team’s focus was making sure that vision reached people. The $100 price was going to get attention, but it mattered that people understood the thinking behind it and the relationship he had built with his supporters.

Civil TV helped tell that story by taking people into Crenshaw and showing his connection to the neighborhood. Media relationships helped carry his message further, and as the campaign developed, partnerships gave people more ways to connect with him. We partnered with All Def Digital on the Proud2Pay concert, which I hosted, and bringing those supporters and purchases of the album together was an amazing experience.

During that same period, he appeared in the Beats by Dre colors campaign commercial, introducing him to another audience. Those opportunities supported the momentum around his music and brought him into new spaces and conversations.

The work was connecting the right media and brand relationships to what Nipsey was already building. He remained at the center of it, with a team helping amplify his vision without losing what made people connect with him in the first place.

Sales opened at a pop-up on Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles, where fans queued to meet Nipsey and buy signed copies. Orders also came through his website. Within 24 hours, he reported $100,000 in sales, and demand prompted All Money In to order another batch of CDs.

Is there a conversation from the final days before the launch that you still remember?

What comes back to me is his energy during that time. It was always “top of the top,” let’s go, let’s get it done. He was focused on moving things forward, and that energy carried into the work.

The conversation about the price is the one that has stayed with me most clearly because it shifted my perspective. Once he explained why he believed in it, the focus became getting the message out and making sure the execution supported his vision.

Nipsey’s dad bought a copy and had him sign it.

When did you realize sales had exceeded the team’s expectations, and how did Nipsey react? What do you remember him saying or doing at that moment?

What stands out is seeing people post screenshots of their purchases, show that they had their copies and give him feedback. You could see the support happening in real time, and that’s when the response really started to feel tangible.

I remember how excited he was. He started sharing screenshots of receipts and the support coming in. People were proud to show that they had participated, which was exactly what the campaign was about.

His excitement is what stayed with me more than any particular sentence. He had put this idea out into the world with so much conviction, and people were showing him that they understood it.

Then, one of the most famous moment happened. JAY-Z backed the campaign with a $10,000 order for 100 CDs. Nipsey first heard through a journalist that Jay respected the idea. Then Roc Nation emailed his team to ask where to send the payment and when the CDs could be shipped.

What was your reaction to JAY-Z buying 100 copies?

It was exciting because JAY-Z understood what Nipsey was doing beyond just buying an album. He understood the business, the ownership and the intention behind Nipsey putting that kind of value on his work, so for him to purchase 100 copies felt like a real show of support for the idea.

But what I remember just as much was watching the excitement spread through celebrity culture. Wendy Williams bought a copy and talked about it as a “Hot Topic,” and there were other people who were genuinely excited to say, “I paid $100 for this.” That was important because people weren’t looking for a discount or questioning why it cost what it cost; they were proud to support it at the value Nipsey had set.

Those moments helped the campaign travel beyond the people who already knew Nipsey’s music. It became a conversation about value, ownership and what it looks like when people believe in an artist enough to invest in the vision.

How do you see Proud2Pay’s influence on artists like Westside Gunn, Mach Hommy, Roc Marciano and Joey Bada$$, who have priced their projects higher and presented them as works of art?

Proud2Pay helped expand the conversation around what artists can charge for their work and who gets to determine its value. With the artists you mentioned, the presentation, the collectibility and the relationship with their audience all contribute to what someone is willing to pay.

You can see a parallel with Eminem’s premium vinyl releases, too. Each artist has their own approach, so I wouldn’t say every release came directly from Nipsey, but Proud2Pay gave people a clear example of an audience supporting music at a price outside the usual expectations.

What was also amazing was seeing what grew from that success. It helped lay the foundation for the Marathon Agency, where we could take that same creative thinking and develop campaigns for other artists. YG embraced the Proud2Pay model for his Red Friday mixtape, and the agency went on to work on campaigns and launches for artists including Nicki Minaj and Dave East. People saw what was possible, and that opened the door for us to build on those ideas together.

That’s a testament to what one mixtape can do. It created opportunities that reached beyond Nipsey’s own music. But the foundation was always the connection he had spent years building with his audience. People believed in his work and what he represented, and Proud2Pay gave them a way to express that support. Raising the price alone doesn’t create that relationship.

Some people criticized the project’s high price. What do you think they misunderstood about Proud2Pay?

They misunderstood the choice. The music was available for free, so nobody had to spend $100 to hear it. The physical copy gave people another way to support an artist they believed in.

It also challenged assumptions about who gets to assign value to their work. I can speak to that honestly because my first response was to suggest $50. Nipsey made me examine why I thought his price needed to come down.

People accept that art, clothing and collectibles can have different levels of value. He was asking them to extend that same consideration to his music. The people who were proud to pay understood what they were supporting, and he trusted them to make that choice.

We headed to San Diego’s Red Bull BC One USA National Final to explore breaking’s place in culture today. Hip-hop changes over time, like any other genre, and some of its foundational elements lose their influence and significance for newer audiences. JAY-Z famously suggested that graffiti and battling perhaps shouldn’t be considered part of hip-hop anymore.

Breaking has also faded from the spotlight. It is one of hip-hop’s four pillars, alongside DJing, MCing and graffiti. But while DJs became global stars and influential producers, MCs became world-famous rappers, and graffiti artists found their way into galleries, breaking has struggled to maintain the same visibility among contemporary audiences. Why has it fallen behind, and what can we do to help preserve the art form?

We traveled to San Diego for the Red Bull BC One USA National Final to understand what is happening within breaking and what place it currently holds in the wider culture. The question feels especially relevant after Raygun’s controversial performance at the 2024 Olympics and the recent Netflix documentary that brought the conversation back into the spotlight.

When breaking made its Olympic debut at Paris 2024, Australian dancer Rachael “Raygun” Gunn became its most controversial face. She lost all three of her battles without receiving a single judges’ vote, while her unconventional moves, including a kangaroo hop, went viral and sparked widespread ridicule. The backlash extended to breaking itself, frustrating dancers who had hoped the Olympics would showcase the art form’s skill and creativity.

Breaking was left out of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, although that decision was made before the Paris Games and the Raygun controversy. After Paris, prominent breakers reported that brands pulled back and prize pools shrank, adding to concerns about the art form’s public image. Netflix’s recent documentary “Untold Raygun: Breaking Badly” revisits the controversy, with Raygun standing by her unconventional approach rather than apologizing for the performance itself.

From Run-DMC’s “It’s Like That” to Missy Elliott’s “Work It,” breaking remained highly visible in hip-hop videos for decades. Movies such as “Wild Style,” “Beat Street” and “Breakin’” introduced it to a mass audience. Today, that visibility has faded. Where does breaking live now?

Red Bull remains one of the few major companies consistently supporting breaking. It launched the annual Red Bull BC One competition in 2004 and continues to organize events around the world. Within the breaking community, Red Bull BC One is a major institution. Outside of it, however, the competition is still not widely understood. Why?

At the Red Bull BC One USA National Final, where B-Girl Blonde (Saree McIntosh) and Victor Montalvo won, we watched every performance and were struck by the dancers’ athleticism, flexibility, creativity and control. We also spoke with leading figures in the scene about where breaking stands today, its relationship with hip-hop and how the culture can move forward after the Raygun controversy.

One of them was the winner Victor Montalvo, who’s also a bronze medalist from the Paris Olympic Games and a two-time Red Bull BC One World Champion.

You won bronze at the Paris Olympics, which is amazing. Would you say that breaking has changed since the Olympics, especially with the Raygun incident?

It’s just the internet. They love trolling. The internet loves trolling, and they make stupid things famous. They love doing that, and then they get mad: “Why is this person famous? Why is that thing famous?” You’re the one making it famous.

Breaking has historically been closely connected to hip-hop. Today, seeing it from the outside, that connection feels much less visible. Where does breaking stand within hip-hop now, for you? Do you still see that connection? How close is it, and how do you perceive it?

I feel like the connection is not as strong anymore. If you look back at the 1990s and early 2000s, you always saw breakers in the music videos, dancing while the rappers were there rapping their songs. Nowadays, you rarely get to see that, so there’s not much connection. It’s like we’re just doing our own thing.

What else could have been different at the Olympics?

It’s just the small things. The music was on point. Everything else was on point. But sometimes it felt like it was people’s first time watching breaking since the 1980s. They’re used to watching it in music videos: “Oh, that’s that old-school stuff you do on the street on cardboard.”

David “Kid David” Shreibman, who hosted Red Bull BC One in San Diego, represents another side of the culture. Beyond his career as a breaker, he is an actor and experienced presenter who worked with Red Bull and covered breaking for NBC during the 2024 Olympics. His ability to explain the culture clearly gives him a valuable perspective on how it is perceived by mainstream audiences.

What is Red Bull in the current culture and how the brand helps breakers?

I think Red Bull has stood at the front of that for the better part of two decades. More, actually. What Red Bull has done has kind of solidified competitive breaking as a real thing, at a level where it can hold its own against other sports and competitions. Red Bull has led the charge and continues to be the biggest player in competitive breaking.

You were a commentator at the Paris Olympics in 2024. How has breaking changed since the Olympics and the drama around the Raygun incident, which probably every media outlet is bringing up? Especially since she just released a Netflix documentary.

Unfortunately, because of what happened with Raygun at the Olympics, if we’re talking about a mainstream audience that didn’t have a good point of reference for what breaking is before the Olympics, that silly, mean, negative moment overshadowed a lot of the really good things that happened.

In the mainstream’s eyes, that moment is now associated with breaking, especially for a lot of the audience that didn’t know about Red Bull BC One.

What’s interesting is that all people really had to do was be interested in the second day at the Olympics, when all this amazing stuff was happening, or realize that Raygun didn’t score any points and that the people she was competing against were actually amazing.

There would have to be a genuine interest from someone to dig a little deeper, and I think you can’t force that.

If you were sitting at home and competitive chess came up, and something funny happened, what would make you want to see what’s actually going on with competitive chess? It would be curiosity.

The hope would be that the Olympics and breaking in general make people curious to see what’s really going on. Nowadays, with the internet, it doesn’t take much to actually see.

You’re either curious or you’re not. I think that’s not just breaking; it’s with anything. You could take it at face value. There are tons of silly sports in the Olympics.

The only difference, and this is what I’ll say, is that breaking is so interesting because it comes from a culture. I don’t know that curling comes from a culture that has music, writing, rapping, and all these things.

In my opinion, the curiosity should come a little easier because you’re dealing with something that comes from an actual culture.

According to people within the community, the controversy also affected brand deals and sponsorship opportunities that had been discussed before the Olympics. For some breakers, this made it harder to build sustainable careers and focus fully on their craft.

So, how has it changed since? I think it has become more difficult for full-time b-boys and b-girls to be taken seriously by corporations and sponsors. There’s a reluctance for big brands to touch breaking.

On the other side, there have been good things. I know, for example, that in China, the government still has programs supporting young b-boys and b-girls, training them and flying in coaches. There was a lot of infrastructure built around training and teaching in different countries.

It looks different in different countries, but I think it did solidify the seriousness of competitive breaking in a lot of places, if you ignore the Raygun stuff.

Breaking has always been part of hip-hop, but now it feels like it’s not as connected anymore, and it’s not as visible. Where does breaking stand within hip-hop for you now? Is it still part of the culture, or is it something of its own?

Breaking will always be part of hip-hop culture. Breaking is the dance of hip-hop. If you say “hip-hop dance,” you’re talking about breaking. But I think what you’re saying is very valid. It’s important to make the distinction between competitive breaking and breaking.

The newer generation and competitive breaking seem to have gotten farther from the actual culture. But I do think Red Bull does a good job of trying to keep the connection alive between this really big, shiny object and this gritty, raw, cultural thing.

It’s a hard connection to maintain. One of the bigger problems is that the newer generation is disconnected from the culture themselves. The people doing the dance, this new generation of kids, are themselves disconnected from hip-hop culture. Therefore, the entire thing becomes disconnected from hip-hop culture.

What do you think needs to happen to bring breaking back to the forefront of the culture?

We teach the youth. Bless all the organizers who are throwing raw events, aren’t making a lot of money from them, and are doing it for the love. And continue to put stuff out that represents the culture.

How do you financially structure your career and life to do breaking but also make money from it?

Being a professional dancer is not a lucrative career for most. There’s probably about 0.5% for whom it’s a career. I’m one of them. And I know it’s the same as acting — 98% of actors are unemployed.

I seriously urge people, and I say this in my workshops, when I travel, and when people ask me for advice: don’t be afraid to have a real job. When I say “real job,” I mean a career job or a nine-to-five.

So many dancers and artists put pressure on themselves, thinking they’re not an artist unless they’re doing it full-time and making money from the craft. But I would say the opposite. You’re always an artist.

I have a lot of skill sets, and that’s how I’ve been able to make a career out of it. I think it’s also about saying yes and not being scared.

Would you say that people in the breaking community are too focused on the past of hip-hop in terms of music?

I’ve always been more interested in newer sounds. But this is the thing: I also know every fucking word to all the classics. I know all the songs because I was a hip-hop kid.

I think it’s your job as a b-boy or b-girl: you have to know all that shit, all the classics.

But I always encourage b-boys and b-girls to dance to different stuff.

B-Girl Kate (Kate Pavlenko) is a Ukrainian breaker based in Los Angeles. She went through a lengthy preparation and qualification process to represent Ukraine at the Olympics, but the competition was overshadowed by the controversy surrounding Raygun, which also affected her own career.

How did the controversy surrounding Raygun affect your career?

Immediately after the Olympics, I received many offers. I was getting emails and discussing some exciting projects, but then all of them disappeared. That is how the situation affected me personally.

Red Bull remains one of the few major companies investing heavily in breaking and helping keep its international competition circuit alive. That support is important, but organizing events is only one part of the challenge. How breaking sounds, how it looks and how it introduces itself to younger audiences will also shape its future.

Breaking is deeply rooted in tradition, and that history is part of what makes it special. At the same time, the culture can sometimes feel difficult for outsiders to enter. Becoming more open and contemporary does not mean abandoning its foundations but rather means finding new ways to connect them with the present.

The dancers showed an incredible level of athleticism and technique, while also reminding us that breaking has always been connected to personal style and individuality. Contemporary streetwear brands could become part of that evolution, helping dancers build a stronger visual identity around their performances.

The event mostly used 1980s and 1990s beats and featured Xzibit, but the crowd’s immediate reaction to a Tyler, The Creator song showed how naturally breaking can connect with the present.

Artists such as AzChike and Westside Gunn, alongside producers like Ovrkast., Conductor Williams, BNYX and Cardo, carry the energy and influence of earlier hip-hop while making it feel current, offering a natural bridge between breaking’s history and its future.

In modern hip-hop, producers have become the conductors of the culture, bringing artists together around a shared vision. For previous generations, it was Pete Rock, J Dilla, Madlib, The Alchemist, and Statik Selektah. For today’s new wave of thought-provoking hip-hop, it’s Stoic, the Grammy-winning producer behind songs for Doechii, MAVI, Lexa Gates, and more, who is bringing the new generation together on his debut album, “PAELLA!”

A New York native raised in a musical family, Stoic met us in the West Village to talk about his sample-based sound, the new generation of rappers, the current state of hip-hop, building a sustainable career as an underground producer, and the challenge of juggling different roles while putting together an album featuring more than 10 artists.

Before we dive into the album and your career, I’d like to start with your upbringing since it’s not a lot of information online. How did your childhood shape your path into music?

Yeah, I think that’s the most obvious cliché that everyone likes to say: “Oh, I grew up with my parents’ music.” But fortunately, that was the case.

I grew up listening to a lot of classic rock. My first concert was Rush when I was 8 years old, and I looked around the concert and didn’t see a lot of other 8-year-olds. So I always thought that was cool.

It was a lot of classic rock, and then slowly but surely it progressed into hip-hop when I was a teenager. The first thing I listened to was Lil Wayne. He was huge and all over the radio. He had that mainstream appeal, but he also had deep cuts. I felt like he was my foray into really good rap music.

At that time, Eminem was doing his thing. Kanye, obviously. JAY-Z, 50 Cent. Guys like that who I would hear on the radio, and then I would discover, “Oh shit, they have more music than just a few radio hits.” Those were my guys early on.

You started making music on GarageBand. Do you feel that sometimes having limited resources helps creativity at an early age?

One thousand percent. It actually started before GarageBand, if we really want to get into it. I had my iPod, for those old enough to remember what that looked like. What I would do is play guitar into the microphone, plug my iPod into the computer and upload it to iTunes. Then I would play that guitar back through my computer speakers, and as it was playing, I would sing over it. I would repeat this process a bunch of times with some drums and bass notes on the guitar until I finally had a fully fleshed-out, minute-long track.

That was really where I got my chops in putting a song together. My resources were so limited and there wasn’t much I could do, but I felt like that forced me to be extra creative to get the job done.

Your production is very sample-driven. Since you grew up on rock music, I feel like there’s a connection there, but you also sample a lot of soul records and funk records. How did this become your focus? Was there an artist, producer or personal experience in New York that brought you to this?

I think what truly brought me to sample-based music was hearing Joey Bada$$’ “1999” for the first time. I realized there was a producer on there called MF DOOM. I liked a lot of his stuff. So I started digging into MF DOOM and realized just about all of his stuff was sample-based. Early on, that’s what I was trying to emulate.

That part of my experience has stuck with me because I just love how with sample-based music you can completely reimagine something and have people view it in a different light.

It’s always so cool when you go from A to B and have people say, “How is this even the same song?” That’s always my favorite reaction.

It’s like having a puzzle, taking it apart and putting it back together in a completely different way, but the picture is still beautiful.

Every legendary producer has their own machine. For J Dilla, it was the MPC 3000. For you, it’s Serato SLAB. Why did you choose the SLAB?

I like the SLAB because I’m a big fan of aesthetics. Beat machines have been having a little bit of a resurgence recently.

I used to use Native Instrumentals Maschine, which I thought was a really nice tool. Then I saw that Serato started making a product called the SLAB, and I use Serato Sample to make my beat chops every day.

So I figured, why not use something that works directly with the software I already have?

Plus, I love the way it looks. It’s simple enough to figure out. You don’t need a tutorial on how to use it. I’ve been loving it so far.

What got me into drum machines was a video I saw of Kendrick in the studio with his producer, recreating one of the beats from “good kid, m.A.A.d city.” I saw him using the beat pad. At the time I was 17, probably had a little too much time on my hands, and figured I needed a new hobby. I fell in love with it ever since.

You’ve worked with artists ranging from MAVI and LIFEOFTHOM to Lexa Gates, and you won a Grammy for your work on Doechii’s mixtape. You’ve become a key figure for a new generation of thoughtful hip-hop. Do you see yourself as someone helping connect and shape this scene?

Truly, I don’t see myself as anything, so that’s a tough question. Going through this experience as a producer and artist, you just get reflections from the world. Whatever people tell you, after a while you start saying, “Oh, maybe that’s me.”

But I just see myself as someone who’s really consistent with making music and who loves music. I think after a while, the people who love music will gravitate toward each other. I’d like to think that’s what’s happening now, but who really knows?

I like being early on artists that I think are special and talented.

Truthfully, me finding artists early now comes down to just being online a good amount. I’m always on YouTube. My Instagram algorithm gives me a lot of Reels from up-and-coming artists, rappers and singers. Whenever I hear someone new and really like their sound, I’ll message them directly and say, “Hey, love this. Would you mind if I sent you some beats? I have some stuff that I think would be great for you.”

A lot of it comes from scouring the internet and finding people, and then advocating for myself as a producer and reaching out to them. Just building genuinely nice connections with people goes a long way.

I’ll also be at a show here or there that has ten people performing. Maybe I’ll love three of the artists, and I’ll reach out to them after the show or go say what’s up after they get offstage. Stuff like that goes a long way.

You built a business model that allows you to stay independent. Are type beats still a focus for you and how you make money?

The Doechii song came together because she found me on YouTube making a type beat. For me, that’s a direct signal from the universe saying, “Hey, keep doing this because good things are happening.”

I have no plans on stopping. It’s still a good chunk of my income, but more than that, it keeps me consistent. For the past six or seven years, I’ve been releasing every other day without missing any days.

YouTube plays a big part in me making a ton of beats every month. The more artists I work with, the more unique beats I have to send out. Right now, it works perfectly into my schedule.

I love doing type beats because it feels like I’m building a community there. It’s people who love music, whether they’re producers commenting a lot or artists saying, “Hey, I just made a 12-song EP using all of your beats.” That stuff is so cool to me. It’s accessible to everyone. I don’t know if I would ever stop.

As far as money is involved, I think I would keep doing it because it’s probably been the most consistent thing in my life for the past seven years.

What does your working schedule look like?

As a musician, keeping myself on almost like a nine-to-five, Monday-through-Friday schedule has worked best.

I have producer friends and artist friends who are in the studio on weekends, late at night, or only cook up after midnight.

For me, I still have friends and family living within the confines of nine-to-five, and I want to be able to make my music and be creative without burning out, while still being able to live a life.

I think you get a lot of inspiration from just living life. If you stop living life and only create, then you’re kind of in a vacuum.

What does it actually mean to be an independent producer in 2026? Has it become easier or more difficult to build a sustainable career?

I think every year it actually gets a bit harder. As far as type beats, a lot of channels don’t stay popular for more than two or three years from what I’ve seen.

For me to still have people tuning into every beat and purchasing beats, I think it’s really helped me keep pushing what I can create. Every year I have to get a little more experimental. I started out making Frank Ocean type beats, and I think if I was still making Frank Ocean beats, even though he hasn’t dropped music in six or seven years, I don’t think it would work as well.

Pushing the envelope is really important in music, and YouTube has definitely helped me with that. Thankfully, in terms of people buying beats, things have been pretty consistent for about the past six years.

There’s a lot of talk about the state of hip-hop right now. How do you see it?

I think there’s so much great hip-hop made every single year. It’s really just up to the listener to find it and whether people want to take the time to find it. Maybe people have less of an attention span or less of a will to find good music year by year. I think that could be true.

But I think hip-hop is in a fine place. I hope people keep creating it. Just like any genre, it has its eras. Classic rock in the ’70s sounds completely different from hair metal in the ’80s or punk in the ’90s.

Rap and hip-hop are generally newer genres and are still going through transformation. We’ll see. I really like how certain artists are pushing sounds and blending the elements of hip-hop that I love with newer elements and different genres.

I really love what guys like Smino are doing, blending hip-hop and R&B, singing and rapping, and using instrumentals that are just so far out. Smino’s artistry mixed with a guy like Monte Booker, who makes hip-hop but also does stuff that sounds like alternative music, has so many different genres in it. I love that.

Who do you think deserves a bigger platform right now?

There’s this dude called Q THA HERO who I think is severely underrated. He’s doing his thing and releasing a lot of really good music. He kind of falls into that jazz-rap bag, but he’s very brash-sounding. He says whatever the fuck he wants, and I love it.

I also think my brother LIFEOFTHOM is doing really good things in rap music. We spoke about guys like Smino, who I still think are yet to reach their peak. I love guys like Jordan Ward doing that R&B/hip-hop sound.

Would you like to work more with R&B artists?

Yeah, I love R&B. Anything melodic really catches my ear.

I think people love singing. When I’ve made a beat and send it to someone and they’re singing over it and it’s catchy, I think that’s just a human quality. We love singing, humming and whistling. R&B music lends itself to that so perfectly.

Do you still have any dream collaborations?

I think everyone has Kendrick as a dream collab. At the top of my list would probably be MIKE as of right now. He’s been one of my favorite artists for the past five years. He’s one of the most special artists we have right now. Between his writing, production and overall energy, you can tell that’s someone who’s very confident in what they’re doing, and people are following suit.

I would love to work with Earl as well, in a similar vein. And guys like Smino and Jordan Ward. I think we could make some really good stuff together.

Nowadays, producers like Metro Boomin, The Alchemist, and Nicholas Craven have become central figures instead of staying in the shadows. It feels like producers are essentially becoming artists themselves. How do you view that shift?

I think producers have become tired of playing the background when, in reality, we’re usually contributing at least 40-50% to the song. Sometimes more, sometimes less, obviously. I think producer-driven albums are such a good thing for music because when I listen to a producer album, it just feels more cohesive.

Sonically, the instrumental is super important to the song, and I might be very biased by saying that. But if you can have a whole body of work that sounds like you’re living in the same world, that’s so important. It really brings the listener in because we’re in a time where, if you can create a world for your audience to live in, that is the most important thing. World-building is tops.

Is that something that pushed you to make your new album “PAELLA!”?

With “PAELLA!,” I wanted to bring people into my world and show them what I liked, what sounds I liked and what artists I actually listened to.

I could almost view this as a playlist of all my favorite artists that I currently listen to in one place. I really like “PAELLA!” because people might hear one of their favorite artists over a beat they would never hear them over again.

But in my twisted mind, they were perfect for that beat, and I could hear them doing great things on it. I don’t know how experimental it is, but in that sense, it’s definitely getting people out of their comfort zones.

Where did the name “PAELLA!” come from?

My mother is Puerto Rican, and she grew up making an amazing paella dish. I always loved that.

A lot of my thoughts on album titles and song titles also come from the aesthetics of how something is going to look on paper and whether I can build a world around a simple concept. “PAELLA!” was something I scribbled in my notes probably four or five years ago.

In my mind, it’s the perfect title for a left-field producer collaborative album because you think about the dish paella and you have all these ingredients that might not normally be seen in the same places.

You’ve got shrimp blending with chorizo, blending with certain herbs and vegetables. It all comes together to make this great amalgamation. I just thought it was conceptually perfect and aesthetically perfect. That checked all my boxes.

What are your top three paellas in New York?

That’s a great question. I really like the paella at Boqueria.

Truthfully, I don’t order it a lot. My mom makes it so well. I’m like that with a lot of food. With Puerto Rican and Italian food specifically, I don’t really want to go out of my way for it because I have family making some really good shit.

Recently was the first time I ever used my mom’s recipe to make it. She makes it a lot better, but for the first time, mine came out pretty well. I give it a seven out of ten.

How much did you take the reins creatively when making “PAELLA!”?

I have no problem taking the reins and asking people what I expect from them and tailoring all of that.

I made this album because it’s all songs I wished existed. I have no problem being a little bossy and a little annoying, asking people to rewrite a verse or saying, “Hey, do you mind if I write a hook for you? I think it would sound better in your voice, but this is how I’m hearing it.”

Orchestrating all of this makes me so happy because, in my mind, there are no disappointing parts on the album.

Was there a song that took the longest to make or rewrite?

There’s one called “Gang Samba” with Q THA HERO and my homie Big Luke.

That one took about four iterations. It’s crazy because I love both of these artists so much, but certain aspects of their performances and the beats I was sending them just didn’t meld in the way I felt they should have.

But the end result was really cool. It’s two dudes rapping their asses off, saying whatever they want over a bossa nova kind of beat, which you don’t really hear a lot.

Your album has a wide range of collaborators. Did anyone surprise you?

I would like to say everyone surprised me because the performances were great, but no one really surprised me. I knew I was handpicking people who are professionals. They really do this.

If there was someone I was a little less familiar with, it was Nina Taylor. She’s a singer featured on the track “Losing Time.”

Before I started scouting for the album, I was unfamiliar with her. She had found one of my beats on YouTube, reached out to me and sent me a demo.

I took a listen and was like, “Holy shit, her voice is incredible.”

I went to check her stuff and she was super, super underrated. So maybe that’s who I was most impressed with.

What did it take to clear the samples for “PAELLA”=?”

On “PAELLA!”, because this is the first release with label backing, there were no samples uncleared.

How I’ve gone about circumventing this over the past couple of years is that I’m really lucky to have a lot of sample makers and producers who make incredible stuff. Stuff that sounds like it’s from records.

I used a lot of that on the album and flipped a lot of it. I also use services like Tracklib and Splice, where it’s either royalty-free or you can clear it with your membership. There are many ways to avoid being sued for not clearing your stuff.

What do you think about using AI for samples?

I’ve thought about the prospect of that. I know AI can make a really good rendition of a ’70s Japanese jazz track. You listen to it without really paying attention and it sounds like a real song. It’s three minutes, has different sections, a ton of sample availability.

But for me, the thought of any AI usage ever getting back to me scares me so much. I also like operating within certain confines. If my confines are, “Okay, I’m only working with samples that I know I can clear or royalty-free stuff,” I want to get the best possible result from that.

With AI, I wouldn’t feel happy about doing it like that because it feels like a shortcut. It feels kind of cheap and nasty, in my opinion. But to each their own.

Who’s to say where AI will be in five years and what the general public’s opinion on it will be?

Did you use a lot of live instrumentation on the album?

Definitely. Going back to the sample makers that I collaborate with frequently, you have guys like Max He, who played a live piano solo at the end of the intro track. I hit him up in post-production specifically for that because I knew he would come up with something incredible.

You have guys like Frollen Music Library out of Australia, who I became friendly with. They have samples with live instrumentation that I flipped on the album.

The whole album, up and down, is live instrumentation that I’ve essentially chopped, rearranged or flipped in a way that sounds really cool to me.

You’ve built a visual world around “PAELLA!” with artwork by Skelly. Why was it important to build such a strong visual identity around the project?

When I was working with Skelly, I showed him some of their artwork as well as a few other directions. I was like, “This is what we want.” We sat on it for about a week, brainstormed, and then we came together with the end result, which was the “PAELLA!” cover. The artwork might be my favorite part of the album.

A lot of artists shoot themselves in the foot by phoning in their artwork. If you think of music as a present, package or gift, the branding and presentation are so important. It’s the difference between your artwork catching someone’s eye, them clicking on it and finding their new favorite artist, or not.

Some of my favorite albums of all time have incredible artwork. To Pimp a Butterfly, for example. That artwork stops you in your tracks. You’re like, “What does this sound like?” Same with an artist like MF DOOM and the whole world he built around being a supervillain.

When you see artwork that someone was thoughtful about, it makes you want to dig deeper. That’s the mindset I took.

The artwork also makes the project feel more like fine art or a luxury experience. Was that intentional?

I don’t know if I was conscious of it during the process, but I did want it to feel like a luxury experience. There are so many quick, fast, cheap options in the world today that we’re missing that nice luxury feel. Everything is, “Here, take this, we’ll give you more later.” It’s quick, it’s easy. I wanted this to really be something that people could sink their teeth into.

Going back to the inspiration for the album, I wanted to touch on Action Bronson and all of his hand-painted album covers.His aesthetic is something I’ve really tried to emulate and something I’m a real fan of. He was definitely a huge inspiration for the hand-painted “PAELLA!” cover.

Those cover artworks usually look beautiful on vinyl records, where people can showcase them almost like pieces of art in their homes. Do you plan on releasing “PAELLA!” on vinyl?

Yes, the vinyl is definitely coming out. I’m really happy you said that about showcasing it in people’s houses because that’s the feeling I wanted.

I want every album cover I make to be something that could be standalone artwork. I wanted this cover to be something where you don’t even have to listen to the music. You could just have it on the wall as artwork. I think that’s a really cool idea.

What was the biggest challenge in bringing “PAELLA!” to life?

Oh my God. Trying to get 15 or so people on the same page as far as releases, sending in verses at the right time, redoing verses, listening to mixes and making sure everything’s okay. You really have to be on top of your game organization-wise because I could see an album like this taking so many years to pull together.

Luckily, I really cared about it, and I was on people’s asses and on my own self to keep going because it’s such a fucking endeavor. There are so many moving parts. I think it was worth it, and I hope the listeners think it’s worth it too. I was working on this album for about two years, maybe a little less.

There have been a lot of iterations of “PAELLA!,” but I think the one you guys are getting is the best one.

Writer: Ivan Dzhelomanov

Photographer: Christopher Currence

Stylist: Lester Fernandez