Behind the Boards with TM88: Producer Talks Working with Drake, Future, Lil Uzi Vert, Travis Scott
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The post Behind the Boards with TM88: Producer Talks Working with Drake, Future, Lil Uzi Vert, Travis Scott appeared first on Consequence.
Behind the Boards is a new series where we spotlight some of the biggest producers in the industry and dig into some of their favorite projects. For this edition, we sit down with producer TM88 to hear about his work with Drake, Future, Travis Scott, and Lil Uzi Vert.
As a co-founder of the producer collective 808 Mafia, TM88 has had the opportunity to collaborate with some of hip-hop’s biggest superstars, including Future, Drake, Travis Scott, and Lil Uzi Vert. When he spoke with Consequence over Zoom in mid-September, the Atlanta native was celebrating his second No. 1 album of 2022 after placing three tracks on DJ Khaled’s God Did (Future’s I NEVER LIKED YOU also debuted atop the Billboard 200 in May).
What really has made the difference in TM88’s career are the relationships he’s built along the way. After breaking through in 2013 thanks to collaborations with Gucci Mane and Future, he was able to take his career to the next level by taking a chance on a flight to LA which led to him landing placements on Travis Scott’s Rodeo and Drake’s If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late.
Though he first booked a hotel, TM88 ended up staying at Scott’s rented studio house, where he linked up with the rapper and a group of producers including Metro Boomin, Sonny Digital, WondaGurl, and fellow 808 Mafia member Southside. Not only did this lead to him making the beat for “Nightcrawler” with Southside and Metro, but he was able to soak in a different approach to producing from being around a creative mind like Travis Scott.
“Working with Trav opened my eyes up to different things and different artists and different ways to attack the beats because working with him, you can’t just give him the normal beats that you would give like Future or anybody,” TM88 tells Consequence. “We got to tell a story with this beat, but also have it to where people can go crazy at a show.”
Being around Scott at that time also led to TM88 producing the beat for Drake’s “Company,” an experience he doesn’t take for granted. “I feel like if I never would have met Travis Scott, bro, I probably wouldn’t even be on half of the stuff that I’ve been on because it challenged me to do different stuff and it’s either you’re gonna quit, or you’re gonna get with the program, you know, and I got with the program,” he says.
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On a more personal level, Lil Uzi Vert’s 2017 hit “XO Tour Llif3” came out of a conversation between the producer and rapper during which TM88 was still processing a traumatic experience from a mass shooting at Fort Lauderdale airport. Though TM88 thankfully was alright, he lost his bookbag containing his computer and all the session files saved on his hard drives during the chaos. This led to him being forced to make do with a broken laptop when he got home to Atlanta.
After hooking it up to a TV and a Beats Pill speaker because he had nothing else to work with, TM88 made the best of the situation. “I’m like ‘Man, I don’t know what else to do. I’m about to make beats,'” he remembers. “Because at this point, I’m about to break down, this my life. So, I get to making beats and ‘XO Tour Llif3’ was like the sixth beat that I made.”
Burnt out from making 20 beats in two days, TM88 then received a call from Lil Uzi Vert during which they were able to lift each other’s spirits. After the rapper vented about being in funk, TM88 empathized with his own recent experiences and gave a small motivational speech that led to the making of “XO Tour Llif3.”
“Just having those talks, man, that’s why I feel like artists and producers gotta be more in sync,” TM88 says. “Because everybody feels like they’re too cool to talk. Like bro, we’re human. Only robots come in and boom, boom, boom and that’s it. That’s why it’s no emotion on a lot of records because you getting a beat from somebody and you’re just rapping.”
Though TM88 doesn’t talk with Future about topics like living on Mars, he values the rapper’s contributions in a different way: for bringing new ideas into the studio. As an example, Future picked what TM88 thought was a throwaway beat for “Way 2 Sexy” and turned it into their No. 1 hit with Drake and Young Thug. He even came up with the idea to sample Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy.”
As for DJ Khaled, the hip-hop mogul brings more to the table than people realize. “Even hearing the tone of his voice, it make you just want to go hard for him,” TM88 says. “I feel like he bring the best out of a lot of people because he challenge you to make things that you’re not normally making because every record Khaled do, he’s trying to go No. 1, he’s trying to go big.”
Besides the motivation, TM88 says Khaled’s ability to piece a song together brought his beat for the Future and SZA collaboration “Beautiful” to another level. “He knows how to put together the record, take certain sounds out and put them somewhere else,” TM88 explains. “I feel like the industry is blessed to have a person like DJ Khaled in it because there’s not many people that care enough.”
TM88 tells Consequence he hopes that getting an R&B record like “Beautiful” on Khaled’s album allows him to dabble in other genres like pop and country. Rather than getting boxed into the trap beats for which he’s become known, TM88 wants to bring out other emotions through his music.
“When you hear these beats, you’re gonna hear everything that I’m going through,” he says. “If I hear a story from my friend, I take that and I go make beats and I put that emotion into the beats. So that way, when you hear ‘XO Tour Llif3,’ you hear the emotion. I was hurting, I lost everything. I didn’t know what I was going to do. So it was like, ‘This what I know how to do.’ I know how to put my emotions into the beats and make you feel it.”
While we await more music from TM88 and his Crash Dummy Records, take a deep dive into his collaborations with Drake, Future, Travis Scott, and Lil Uzi Vert below.
Drake feat. Future and Young Thug – “Way 2 Sexy” (2021)
Future, he’s always constantly thinking of new stuff like [the Right Said Fred “I’m Too Sexy” sample]. We have other songs that haven’t came out that he might make a suggestion to and we just add it. That’s why I love working with Future because he’s not hard to work with. He’s super talented, and he’s not just going to be that same stale artist in the studio that’s like, let’s just rap. He’s coming up with new ideas that we’re not even thinking about.
Me and [co-producer] TOO DOPE, we was linking up every day. I go get him from his crib, we come to my crib, and we’ll make beats from 1:00 p.m. all the way to 7:00 in the morning. So this one day, we was just using the same sound, like the 808 the whole day. I’m like, “Man, let’s make a beat with a whole ‘nother 808. Let’s try to make something different.” And “Way 2 Sexy” ended up being that, but it’s actually one of those beats where we was like, “Man, we don’t really care about this beat.” It was a throwaway beat, you know?
Future called me and he was like, “I’m at the studio rapping, pull up.” I’m like, “Aight, bet.” I just put all the beats that we made in a folder and just happened to go to the studio. We did, what, maybe eight, nine songs that night. “Way 2 Sexy,” I think he started on it that night. Or the next day, I can’t remember. [Young] Thug, Drake, he added them, and then it was just crazy. That whole experience, it’s hard to kind of go back and process it because it all happened so fast. We worked on like 20 songs that week.
I just know we didn’t think too much of the beat, but Future loved the beat — the beats we don’t like he’s gonna pull them up anyway. He’ll start from the bottom of the list and just go up. He’ll keep doing songs and keep doing songs. And “Way 2 Sexy” was just hitting different in the studio — that 808, the hook. It was just one of those situations. It was legendary and just to even get Drake on the record, like Drake even liking the song, liking the hook. I’m like, “Dang, Drake like this? It got to be something.”
I was there with Future and then everybody else got there later. Like I left and then I came back the next day and it was “Way 2 Sexy.” The sample wasn’t even on there yet, but when I ended up hearing the song post-mix, it was on there. Even when I heard it come out, I was like, I don’t remember this being on there. So it was cool to hear it, to mash it in with like that club trap sound. Super dope.
Lil Uzi Vert – “XO Tour Llif3” (2017)
Me and Uzi, we talk about other shit. Like, we might fucking talk about the stars and planets aligning, and what if we lived on fucking Mars, or what if it was the year 3088? We’ll talk about some shit like if you can live forever, would you? If you could preserve your body ’til the year 4000, would you do it? Stuff like that, and I think that brings other emotions out on the records. It makes you want to have fun.
I tell Uzi all the time, like, “Bro, when the mic turns on, that’s when you turn into Lil Uzi Vert.” That cartoon cat on his mixtape album covers, he turns into him. You can hear it as soon as he steps on the mic. I tell him all the time, like, “Bro, this what people pay to hear. This.” So working with Uzi is dope, he’s a dope person.
“XO Tour Llif3” beat, I’ll give you a short version of it. So I ended up going to Miami. I went down there to make beats with Southside and we went to cook up for Future. We had booked DJ Khaled’s studio. We was in there for like three days. Gucci ended up calling me when I was getting ready to leave, so I canceled my flight and went and pulled up on Gucci. I stayed at Gucci’s crib for like a week, me and Murda Beatz, shout out Murda. We had so much fun that week, we was cooking up, recording and stuff like that.
I ended up getting ready to come home ’cause it’s the holidays — Christmas was coming up. Long story short, it was a terrorist attack going on at the airport. Some guy came from Alaska, I think he had a TEC-9 or something. And he went in the bathroom and loaded it up and came out and started shooting people at [Fort Lauderdale airport]. That ended up happening like three terminals over. We were watching the news — we thought they was doing it at Miami Airport, but it was at the airport we was at!
We all get to running, and my stuff ends up falling. I dropped my bookbag with my computer and stuff in there — all I had was my phone. We run on the plane and we all shut the door. We’re on the plane for like an hour and then they get us off the plane. They got us on the tarmac and we’re out there for four hours until we’re able to come get our stuff. Out of everything, I found my phone just laying there, so I grabbed my phone. It’s so many bookbags and stuff everywhere. So I lost my hard drives, my PC… sessions, files. Everything.
I booked another flight, go home. I see one of my old laptops. I open it, the screen is busted. I get an HDMI cord. I hook it up to the TV. I get my Beats Pill because I don’t have my interface to hook up my speakers. So I get my Beats Pill, plug it up. I’m like “Man, I don’t know what else to do. I’m about to make beats.” Because at this point, I’m about to break down, this my life. So I get to making beats and “XO Tour Llif3” was like the sixth beat that I made. I end up making 20 beats in two days and I’m burnt out. I’m like, “Man, forget it. I ain’t making no more beats today.”
Uzi called me, so I’m like, “What’s up, bro?” He’s like, “Bro, I need to talk to somebody.” I’m like, “What’s up, what’s going on?” And then he’s like, “I don’t know man, I’m just in a funk. This shit, I don’t — eff this music stuff.” We just get to talking and I’m like, “Bro, I just went through some shit and fuck it, bro, we gotta push through. We gotta get this together.” Then he was like, “Send me some beats.”
I sent him the beats, he end up recording “XO Tour Llif3.” But just having those talks, man, that’s why I feel like artists and producers gotta be more in sync. Because everybody feels like they’re too cool to talk. Like bro, we’re human. Only robots come in and boom, boom, boom and that’s it. That’s why it’s no emotion on a lot of records because you getting a beat from somebody and you’re just rapping. We was able to have that talk, and “XO Tour Llif3” came. Bro, I’m glad that I picked up the phone that day because I don’t even talk on the phone like that.
Travis Scott – “Nightcrawler” (2015)
“Nightcrawler,” we was basically there with Trav. We was working on his album [2015’s Rodeo]. He had a studio crib. Me and Southside was there, so half of 808 [Mafia] was there. It was just homies like me, Metro, Southside, Sonny Digital, Travis Scott. WondaGurl was also there — how can I forget, oh my God. All of us, we were staying in the same house.
You know, at first I wasn’t. I flew out there and I had got a hotel room. Southside and Metro and them called, they was like, “Bro, we at Trav crib, pull up to the crib.” And I’m like, “Oh shit, I’m on the way.” So, I got my computer and pulled up. We were all doing beats and we’re doing songs in there, just hanging out.
Then I was about to leave and Trav was like, “Bro, where are you going?” I said, “Back to the hotel, bro, I’m tired. I know y’all about to go to sleep in a minute.” He’s like, “Bro, you don’t have to go nowhere. Stay here, bro. Let’s finish this project.” So I stayed there. We went and got all my stuff from the hotel, brought it back, and got my room set up.
Long story short, we were all smoking and then just working on records. One night, “Nightcrawler” beat with me and Metro and Sizzle (aka Southside). We were sitting there and we were just trying to come up with different ideas. We were clicking on sounds and then bam, that “woof!” sound. I’m like, “Bro, we got to put this in the beat.”
I feel like that made the beat just different than what we normally worked on — especially working with Trav, it was going to be different anyway. I feel like this is one of the most experimental beats because we added sounds that I don’t think that should have been together. And it just clicked, you know.
When we was making the beat, Trav had the Pro Tools pulled up. So while we’re making the beat, he’s recording the hook. So if anybody gets the original session, you can go back, we’re starting the beat over. You can hear it while he’s recording, like while he’s doing his takes. That was the first time I ever seen somebody do something like that.
Travis Scott, he did a lot of stuff that it was my first time seeing, just even within that timeframe. In that era, he did amazing things, but the “Nightcrawler” beat was — seeing him record to it while we was making the beat, it just made it a much more special beat. And it was my first Travis Scott album, so I was excited.
Being there, working with Trav opened my eyes up to different things and different artists and different ways to attack the beats because working with him, you can’t just give him the normal beats that you would give like Future or anybody. You got to take them somewhere. We got to tell a story with this beat, but also have it to where people can go crazy at a show.
Drake – “Company” (2015)
We ended up, me and Trav ended up getting on Drake’s album, If You’re Reading This. “Nightcrawler” and “Company” was made in the same year. I think the same fall time or whatever because I think it was when the Drake album came out. I was there at this time to work with Trav.
Trav was like, Drake called and he want to do some songs with him. And I’m like, “OK, what we got to do?” He was like, “Let’s work on this record. Drake sent me a record, let’s make a whole ‘nother beat to go with this record to show like a transition.” We made one beat, but it wasn’t hitting on anything. We deleted it and started working on another one.
It was me, WondaGurl, Allen Ritter, Trav. All of us was in the studio and then finally, one night we finished it and sent it to Drake. I want to say that was February because we was working on Trav’s stuff and I don’t think Trav’s stuff even came out yet. “Nightcrawler” and all that stuff. I don’t think it came out yet.
Getting to work with Trav, he put us on to a lot of stuff, man. I feel like if I never would have met Travis Scott, bro, I probably wouldn’t even be on half of the stuff that I’ve been on because it challenged me to do different stuff and it’s either you’re gonna quit, or you’re gonna get with the program, you know, and I got with the program.
What if I wasn’t there? Like, where would my career be today? I think about that, like, if I didn’t take that flight. There’s a lot of flights I didn’t take, you know, that people wanted me to come work with them and I didn’t go. When I took this Travis Scott flight, I paid for my own — I didn’t even know I was going to work with Trav, I was just going to LA because I was tired of being in Atlanta and I took my last $700, bro, caught a flight to LA, and booked the hotel room for like three days.
Of course, somebody helped me out, but I was just like, “Bro, something gotta give like, I can’t just keep doing trap music, and it’s not helping me pay my bills all the way.” I love music so much and I don’t want to quit on it. If I quit, what else am I gonna do? So I got to figure this out. Bro, LA changed my life.
Future – “Codeine Crazy” (2014)
That’s when Super Future came back out, we was like, “Oh, man, he in Super Future mode right now.” That was a dope time period because he was back in that mode. I guess it was like a vulnerable time, too, because he was putting it all on wax, and it helped his career tremendously. I’m not even saying the beats, I’m talking about him actually like spilling his pain on the beats. He do that anyway, but people felt him more this time, and to be a part of that, legendary, man, legendary.
This one day I was at home. I was tired of being out every day, like I was at the studio with Metro [Boomin] and Southside and Sonny [Digital] and them every day. I was like, “Man, I’m gonna stay home today,” and I made 15 beats. I got a call and it was like, “Nicki Minaj is working on her project [The Pinkprint], do you have anything for her?” And, of course, I said, “Yeah, I got something,” but I really didn’t. I was like, I can go make something real quick. Let me go make something. Long story short, I didn’t get on her project.
But, the beats that I made that night, I took them straight to Future the next day. It was more like, what, 15 or 16 beats? He did the songs. I want to say, Metro was picking the songs for the Monster album and I think Southside and my boy Chaz Gotti, he was there. I think Metro played the song and Chaz and them was like, “This gotta go on there.”
They called me when they was in the studio. They was like, “Boy, that song you got with Future, ‘Codeine Crazy?’ It’s crazy.” I’m like, “For real?” And that’s how I know one of my songs finna go crazy. Just like from “Way 2 Sexy.” Just like “XO Tour Llif3,” people was calling me and was like, “Bro.” Well, with “XO,” Uzi was calling me. But other people that didn’t have nothing to do with the songs was calling me and was like, “Bro, it’s crazy, you got a hit.”
You know me, I try not to let it go to my head. I try to stay calm, stay humble. I don’t wanna mess nothing up, so I just be like, “For real? OK, I’mma hear it one day.” Then it just happened to come out and it be one of those ones.
But I definitely made the “Codeine Crazy” beat for Nicki Minaj. And I still want to work with Nicki, like who don’t want to work with Nicki. Hopefully, we’ll get that chance to work. But that time, it ended up being “Codeine Crazy” and I couldn’t be more happier.
Behind the Boards with TM88: Producer Talks Working with Drake, Future, Lil Uzi Vert, Travis Scott
Eddie Fu
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