Copyright Pitchfork
This past weekend, I was watching the premiere of Rachel Sennott’s new influencer culture HBO comedy I Love LA when I was caught off guard by a name in the credits: Kenneth Blume. If you’ve been tapped out of the Geese phenomenon, you may be thinking, Who the fuck is that? The answer is simple: That’s Kenny Beats. (777 is still good, by the way.) To undergo his transformation from rap production chameleon to acclaimed rock-record producer and film and TV score composer—he also did the music for Alex Russell’s thriller Lurker, which is sort of like if The Talented Mr. Ripley were about a Brockhampton stan—he switched up his name, an extension of the thought process that, to be taken seriously by musical institutions, you have to soften your connection to rap. “I named myself Kenny Beats at 15 years old for MySpace—because my name was Kenny and I made beats—and it kind of just stuck,” he said in an interview over the summer. “And whenever I get a Grammy nomination as Kenny Beats, there’s times where in my heart I’m just like, ‘But my last name is Blume.’” It’s disheartening that Kenny thinks like that because, hey, man, beats are sick and who cares if some suits on a voting board or in Hollywood don’t think so! I was reminded of that last week when I pulled up with my friend to a show in Williamsburg. There, I saw Chicago’s Semiratruth fiddle around and improvise on top of their 2024 album, The Star of the Story, reminding me of the most surreal moments on collagist classic Red Burns. Then, later in the night, out came Jersey digital crate digger Doris, whose Ultimate Love Songs Collection, 50 tracks of pitch-shifted sampledelia, was one of my go-to albums of last year. During the performance, Doris’ mic was messed up, so all of my attention was on the production and, as he breezed through dozens of one-minute songs, I turned to my friend and said, “I’ve listened to this album so many times and the beats still blow me away.” All of that had me thinking about the beats I’ve come across lately that have been giving me a similar feeling. These days, that tends to be the stuff coming from the bouyon scene of Guadeloupe and Dominica, where they’re cooking up inhuman keyboard melodies every week, or on the DMV free car circuit, where layers keep getting added to the blown-out foundation set by producers like Dolan Beatz and Cheecho. Below is a roundup of some of my songs from those scenes and beyond. Lady Binladen: “Blow It” I can’t front: I’m a little jealous whenever I meet someone from another city who tells me stories of bumping Baton Rouge jig beats at middle school dances. It’s a strain of Deep South rap that, despite being infused into so many regional styles (from Milwaukee lowend to L.A. ratchet music) of the last 15 years, never really made it up to New York. Therefore, I don’t have a lot of nostalgia for Mouse and Level’s “I Bet U Won’t,” but what I do know is that the way it is flipped into a ballistic new-age Chicago drill beat on this Lady Binladen cut is unreal. Armed with clipping drums and a slight touch of the fidgety footwork energy that has swept across the scene—Lil M.U.’s “Top of Cars” is probably the best example of that—it’s extremely dancey while keeping the cutthroat drill intensity intact. XanGang: “Promiscuous Lover” I’ve definitely hit a New Edition two-step in the mirror once or twice to XanGang’s “Promiscuous Lover.” It’s the new jack plugg beat buried at the end of the producer’s Love & Cuddles Samples, a collection of snippets he uploaded to SoundCloud to advertise beats he was selling. A long time pillar of plugg, Xan has been teasing this computerized rebirth of new jack swing grooves since “New Jack Story” cut through the scream tour nostalgia of Corey Lingo’s Safe 2 Say back in July. “Promiscuous Lover,” with all the drum machine rolls and knocking snares, might be even better. It’s like if Teddy Riley grew up in the SoundCloud era. Tana: “Lil Twin” Kelewya is one of the few producers that can still make a rage beat that moves me. Like the best stuff on A Great Chaos, “Lil Twin” is patient, taking its time with a lengthy build up that finally explodes into colorful madness like a gusher. Thankfully, it’s a lot less dark and self-serious than the new touchstones of the subgenre, like Jump Out and Rest in Bass, full of slinky Donkey Kong drums and hangout vibes. Jujujumpinout: “All We Know” [ft. TOD Buddha] The flickering laser beam beats have been getting passed around from Detroit to South Florida to Memphis for a few years now, but I think Philly rappers have the sharpest ear for them. Here, Jujujumpinout and TOD Buddha grab one that is sparse and dramatic with the way it wraps the percussion and all the fixings around a looped and sped-up John Legend hook. Together, with their shot out of a cannon rapping, it’s like the drill equivalent of Knxwledge’s Meek Mill remixes.
