THE 2011 JUNO AWARDS with performances by Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Chromeo, Down with Webster, Hedley, Johnny Reid, Sarah McLachlan and more, at the Air Canada Centre (40 Bay), Sunday (March 27), 7:45 pm. $99-$213.75. TM. The show airs on CTV starting at 8 pm.
Given the hot streak he’s been on for the past two years – and the 2011 Grammys on his shelf – it’s kinda cool that Boi-1Da can still get excited about the Juno Awards.
With characteristic humility, the beatmaking producer from Toronto, born Matthew Samuels, says he’s honoured to be recognized in his home country.
He has credits on records nominated in four categories at this year’s show: Eminem’s Recovery (international album of the year), Drake’s Thank Me Later (album of the year and rap recording of the year) and Drake’s Fireworks (songwriter of the year).
For those keeping score, Thank Me Later was the eighth-highest-selling album of 2010. Recovery was number one. Boi-1da (pronounced Boy Wonder) produced Over, and Not Afraid, the lead singles on both. The latter has an astronomical 213 million-plus hits on YouTube.
According to Samuels, those figures represent vindication.
“Some people had doubts about me, thinking I was just lucky with the songs that were out before,” the 24-year-old says. “But they can see now it’s something I really work hard at, that I put my heart into, and it’s paying off.”
The seriousness of that statement is mitigated somewhat by the fact that he’s speaking from the parking lot of El Pollo Loco, a grilled chicken fast food chain in L.A., a city where he now spends a few months out of every year.
Wherever he is, Boi-1da is busy. Currently, he’s banging out music for Akon, 50 Cent, Nicole Scherzinger, Game, Busta Rhymes and breakout UK rapper Tinie Tempah among others. His beats are all over Drake’s next album, Take Care, which he promises will lift the Canadian rapper to even greater heights.
The fact that Drizzy is also hosting this year’s Junos is significant to the producer. Were it not for Forest Hill’s finest, 1da might still be slaving away over an Acer laptop in the basement of his family’s home.
But it’s been a two-way street, for sure. Drake has definitely benefited from the lush sonic backdrop 1da has given him since 2006, when they met through a mutual friend, fellow Toronto-based producer D10. That connection almost didn’t happen, because of the rapper’s past life playing Jimmy Brooks on the colourful high school drama Degrassi: The Next Generation.
“I was kind of skeptical,” Samuels says. “I knew him from the TV show, so I was like, ‘Oh, that guy raps? That’s weird.'”
Drake quickly disabused the beatmaker of all doubts when he sent him a song called Money.
“I was blown away. He was rapping about money, but not like anyone else would. It was so relatable. His voice, flow, was crazy. I saw the vision from there.”
Boi-1da was instrumental (ha) in helping the rapper develop that vision from the ground up. He worked on all three of Drake’s mixtapes, producing the track Best I Ever Had from his last one, So Far Gone. The track was an unprecedented mixtape crossover hit, a “song of the summer” in 2009 that eventually went double platinum.
Like a menu item at El Pollo Loco, it was a wrap. Drake had arrived, and so had Boi-1da.
“My email was flooded suddenly,” he says. “I started getting text messages and phone calls from publishers. Everybody wanted to meet me and work with me on different stuff, and get me in the studio. I took my first trip to L.A. when that started happening.”
Fortunately, the producer had enough material to go around. And not just throwaway beats either, but a full arsenal of certified bangers. Boi-1da’s sound isn’t immediately recognizable like DJ Premier’s or Swizz Beatz’s, but certain signature elements recur throughout his productions: dancehall reggae’s beloved air horns, bass kicks that drop like medicine balls, evocative lines of minor-chord melody, a sense of negative space that puts the lyrics front and centre.
These are the qualities that prompted Dr. Dre to phone Boi-1da and rave about his beats after hearing them from Stat Quo, one of the artists then signed to his label, Aftermath.
For the young producer, who had been heavily influenced by Dre’s meticulous sound, it was about the closest thing to getting a call from God.
“It was surreal, like ‘I just talked to Dr. Dre,'” he says. “It was a brief conversation, but it definitely had me in the zone for a few weeks.”
Since then, he’s paid numerous visits to the doctor’s laboratory, which he describes as “better than my little basement corner in every single way.”
But it was Boi-1da’s management team, not Dre, who put him in touch with Eminem. Through some kind of perfect alignment of the stars, Marshall Mathers had been working on Recovery, the album that would mark his comeback, and looking to get away from the carnivalesque, celebrity-dissing style that had become his formula for lead singles.
In the meaningful strings and scattered snares that ran through the beat for Not Afraid, Eminem heard the perfect soundscape for a mature, inspirational song that extolled a recommitment to the fundamentals: freedom from addiction, raising his daughter right and promising to make music his fans could respect. In other words, some pretty heavy shit.
The fact that his beat was an artistic turning point for one of the most popular musicians in the world is not lost on Boi-1da.
“He spilled his guts on that one,” Samuels says. “I got a lot of positive reactions from it, emails from people saying that song inspired them to get off drugs, stuff like that. Eminem had to do that. It was the perfect first single – not because it was my track, but because it’s what people wanted to hear from him.”
Naturally, the producer had some good seats at the Grammy Awards in February, and brought his older sister, who got to sit next to one of her favourite artists, singer India.Arie.
He made more connections that night with even more big-name artists, though it’s too early to talk about some of the upcoming work he’ll be doing with them. He does, however, have plans to assemble a collaborative “Boi-1da presents” album in the tradition of Timbaland’s Shock Value series.
He’s also discovered his first protegé – Bizzle, a rapper who makes Christian hip-hop, but without being corny, the producer insists.
“He’s like the Christian version of Kanye West.” I was dubious but found myself impressed when I heard an ambitious freestyle that piously attacks Jay-Z’s blasphemy, instructing him to “carry a Bible.”
Considering the outstanding run he’s had, the producer is blessed himself. Now that he’s one of hip-hop’s production A-listers, I can’t help but ask 1da how much he’s charging for beats these days, in the event that I decide to jump-start my own rap career. Turns out they’re a little out of my price range.
“A fajillion dollars.”
music@nowtoronto.com
