Metro Boomin

When the boy who would become Metro Boomin—Leland Tyler Wayne, born in 1993 in St. Louis, Missouri—decided he was going to get serious about the rap thing, he intercepted his mother after work with a thick green folder that was part dossier, part wish list, part five-year plan. By the time he graduated from high school, he and Mum were making eight-hour car trips from St. Louis to Atlanta so Metro could work with Gucci Mane and OJ da Juiceman—contingent 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. But the work—glossy, atmospheric monsters that pushed trap to cinematic extremes—had too much traction to ignore. What followed was some of the most definitive rap of the 2010s, helmed by Future (“Mask Off”, “Low Life”), Migos (“Bad and Boujee”), Post Malone (“Congratulations”), 21 Savage (“Bank Account”) and Kodak Black (“Tunnel Vision”). That Metro tackled such longer-form projects as full-length collaborations and executive productions not only made him unusually well-known for a producer, but suggested a broader vision above and beyond day-to-day beatmaking. After finally releasing his own album with 2018’s NOT ALL HEROES WEAR CAPES, he confirmed those wider ambitions by assembling an all-star cast for 2023’s ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE soundtrack and returning more than once to his creative partnership with fellow trap visionary Future.