Switched on Pop - Metro Boomin Wants Some More

Episode Date: October 6, 2023

Few producers have had such a demonstrated impact on the the last decade of music as Metro Boomin. Described by GQ as the “architect of Atlanta rap,” Metro has netted collaborations as far-ranging from Coldplay to Gucci Mane, garnered three #1 projects on the Billboard 200, and is credited with bolstering trap music’s presence both in and out of the South. From “Jumpman” to “Bad & Boujee” to “Creepin’,” we’ve been hearing his productions for years – all of which manage to capture the ear due to his penchant for eerie soundscapes and light and dark dichotomy.  This episode of Switched on Pop, we take a closer look at Metro Boomin’s career, highlighting what makes his production style so versatile.  Songs Discussed: Metro Boomin, John Legend – On Time ILOVEMAKONNEN, Drake – Tuesday (feat. Drake) Future – Radical Drake, Future – Jumpman Kanye West – Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1 Big Sean – Bounce Back Migos, Lil Uzi Vert – Bad and Boujee (feat. Lil Uzi Vert) 21 Savage, Metro Boomin, Future – X (feat. Future) Future – Wicked Future – Mask Off Metro Boomin, 21 Savage – Don't Come Out The House (with 21 Savage) Metro Boomin, J Balvin, Wizkid, Offset – Only You (feat. Wizkid, Offset & J Balvin) Thompson Twins, Metro Boomin – Hold Me Now (Metro Boomin Remix) Solange – Stay Flo James Blake, Moses Sumney, Metro Boomin – Tell Them (feat. Moses Sumney & Metro Boomin) The Weeknd – Heartless Metro Boomin, The Weeknd, 21 Savage – Creepin' (with The Weeknd & 21 Savage) Mario Winans, Enya, Diddy – I Don't Wanna Know (feat. Enya & P. Diddy) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switch on Pop. I'm producer Rianna Cruz. And I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. Our dear friend songwriter Charlie Harding is sick this week. So Rihanna, I'm excited to go toe to toe with you on today's topic. Yeah, today we're going to be talking about a very specific producer. And Nate, I feel like, you know, when you hear certain producers, I think it's safe to say that you know what to

expect, right? Yeah, totally. Timbaland, you're going to have a lot of beatboxing and weird tones. Farrell, you're going to have a super stripped down production. If you're listening to a production by the late, great, Sophie, you're going to hear these bizarre otherworldly textures and unidentifiable percussion. So, yeah, I definitely think you listen and you're like, who's making these sounds and why do they sound the way they do? Totally.

But there's one producer who, despite being one of the biggest figures in hip-pop and even pop music right now, his sound isn't exactly easy to pin down. And that's Metro Boomin. Introducing Metro motherfucking boo-nickle-nigoo-n-n-niggas. His first book-and-booming. big break came in 2014, but in the years since, he's joined the ranks of rappers like Kendrick Lamar in producing big budget movie tie-in soundtracks. He's netted production credits on songs from a wide range of artists, from Gucci-Mane to James Blake to Coldplay. He's credited by outlets like Billboard as bolstering Atlanta's hip-hop dominance in the 2010s. And I think we can

credit him with this dark brooding sound that we hear in contemporary hip hop. I'm so here for this, Rihanna. Metro Boomin is one of those names that I see in credits and I hear disgust in conversation and like music magazines. But I have to say I'm like, I don't have a sense of who he is and like what makes him special and how he's been able to do all these different collabs and projects like you said. So I'm excited to dig a little deeper into the work of this brilliant and perhaps slightly enigmatic composer. I wish that every time I walked into a classroom, someone said,

it's motherfucker musicologist Nate Sloan! That intro got me hyped. Wow. Yeah, it's the intro to Metro's latest album, Heroes and Villains. And I think that track represents the excitement of Metro Boomin. He's big, he's massive. He commands any song that he produces on. So today I want to talk about Metro Booman and try to understand how over the course of a decade,

he became one of the biggest producers of the 21st century, not just in hip-hop, but in all of music. But, of course, to understand him, we got to start from the beginning of his career. So the Spark Notes of Metro Booman, pre-2014, is a big. is that he was born in St. Louis, but moved to Atlanta to attend Morehouse College. Even when he was in St. Louis, though, he was ingrained in Atlanta hip-hop. His mom would drive him all the way down to Atlanta

for in-person studio collaborations, which is pretty cool. Shout out to the moms. Shout out to the moms out there, driving their children around. So on these trips, Metro Booman became acquainted with rappers from Walk-A-Flock a Flames label,

Brick Squad Monopoly. These rappers included Tadon and OJ. DeJose Man, but also established acts like Gucci, Mane, and Future. These artists were prominent in the trap scene in Atlanta, the early 2010s, trap being categorized by rattling high hats, 808 kicks, et cetera, and would go on to influence Metro's sound. Future, in particular, would be an important rapper in Metro's career. They collaborated on a number of tracks throughout the years, including the song Radical, which is a, a, knots track and starts off in such a cool way. That is a crazy combination of sounds. I think maybe the first thing we hear is throat singing, like overtone singing.

Yeah. Like they do in the Tuva region where they sing multiple tones simultaneously by isolating the overtones of the fundamental pitch. So not a sound you might expect to hear in a future track, but it's a sound you might expect to hear in a future track. It works. It creates this really cinematic kind of mood for the piece. It's cool. It's exciting. And Radical opens up Futures Tape Monster.

That came out in 2014. The same year, Metro Booman's first big credit came due to none other than Toronto rapper Drake and his remix on I Love McCona's song, Tuesday. I feel like I'm going up On the Tuesday Got your girl in the cut of she Tuesday Club going up On the Tuesday

I feel like I kind of missed this one The first time around Rihanna But listening to it now It's similar to the future track It's got this really immersive kind of sonically rich production Lyrically I mean I love the fact that he makes Tuesday

and choosy rhyme. That's quite a feat of Chusay. On the Tuesday. Got your girl in the courtesy Tuesday. That's quite a feat of enunciation.

It's inventive. Cheusay. Yeah, I think a highlight of this track is Mackinin's vocals, which are sweet and kind of sensitive is how I put it. It's almost like a coup, you know,

which fits well with the beat. which is kind of woozy and youthful and has an optimistic kind of vibe to it. It feels very memory-based, you know, like you're rewinding a tape of your favorite nights in, you know, 2014 high school. A lot of tenderness in those vocals, like you were saying, Rihanna, which creates a nice contrast with the more intense production. Yeah, so we already have Drake wrapping over. a Metro bead.

Squad going. Nobody flipping packs now. And simultaneously, Metro is already collaborating with Future. So this kind of production synergy leads to one of Metro's biggest singles.

And that's 2015's Jump Man by, of course, Drake and Future. Yes. Yeah. Jump in, Jumping, Jumping, Jumping, and boys are to something. They disfell

like two or three weeks out of the country. Damn boys up to something. It's so good. I just want to play the whole song. Yeah, I remember this being such a big deal when it came out, this Drake future collab, and they're vastly different MC styles kind of coexisting in this really satisfying way. I hadn't really paid as much attention to the production until just now.

It's very dark and sparse, and I think maybe provides this bedrock for these rappers to, like, kind of prove their metal lyrically? No, totally. Jumpman only peaked at 12 on Billboard, but was eventually certified five times platinum and featured all of the

sonic hallmarks that we've come to know as Metro Sound. Like you said, we have a dark production. You know, a keynote about Metro and the sounds that he's making in this era is that his songs are very brooding and eerie.

You know, Metro, I don't trust you, I don't go see you. Yeah. In the first few seconds of Jumpman, we hear a tinny music box-like melody that kind of evokes, like, the conjuring or, like, insidious to me. Yeah. I'm too scared to watch those movies, but I'll take your word for it, Rihanna. Halloween. The first line Drake raps is Halloween, so.

Sent a little shiver down my spine. A little spooky. A little Halloween spooks for you, for your October. Very seasonally appropriate. It's also a much different beat, comparatively speaking, from a song like Tuesday. It's much darker and similarly complex, but carries a much different sound in it. And Metro also puts these little quirks in the beat to kind of hone in the ominous nature of it. Like, you could hear a raven screech at multiple points in the song, and I think that's pretty funny.

I just found my tempo like a DJ. Whoa, Rihanna, that's so cool. I would not have noticed. And forgive me, but I'm about to go off on this. First of all, I love the way that Raven Call, like, kind of maps to Drake's little, like, upward falsetto notes that he hits when he's like, yeah, yeah. The Raven Call kind of, like, creates this nice echo of that.

And then I feel like we were just listening to. Doja Cat a few weeks ago, and Charlie pointed out that there was this loon call in one of her tracks. Yeah. So I'm loving now hearing Metro Boomin's Raven as part of this sort of a larger field guide to bird noises in hip hop tracks. And then finally, you know, it just brings us back to that kind of spooky Gothic Edgar Allan Poe horror theme that you've been elucidating so far. so I find that very rewarding. Yeah. I mean this in the best way.

This song is kind of like the spirit Halloween of rap music. There's something just so spooky about it that I think is really cool. And it sort of stands the test of time. You could also tell Metro's having fun with it as evidenced by the Raven. And Jum Man also features a staple of Metro Boomin. He used it heavily in the early years of his career, and that's his producer tag. If Young Metro, I don't trust you. I'm going to shoot you.

So that's Future, saying his producer tag. If Young Metro don't trust you, I'm going to shoot you. And this tag has become a staple on some of Metro's biggest hits. You could see it used heavily in 2016 when Metro has a banner year. Following Jumpman, Metro has production credits on songs like Father Stretch My Hands by Kanye West. Bounce back by Big Sean His first number one hit with Migos in 2016 Bad and Bougie

And 2016 is also a big year for Metro Boomin because he puts out his first project where he shares equal billing with the rapper and that's on his EP Savage mode with 21 Savage. That song is called X, just a letter, and it features Future. And both on and off this EP Savage Mode,

Metro Boomin continues to work with Future. It's in their collaborations where you can find Metro at his most creative, going back to Radical, which we mentioned before. As well as other fascinating beats, like a personal favorite of mine, wicked. So you're hearing something in his collaborations with Future that really brings out kind of

the more vanguard and experimental side of Metro Boomin's craft. Like what do you think it is about that MC in particular maybe that catalyzes Metro Boomin to like push his stuff to the next level? I think maybe it's that Future's voice translates well to all of these different. production styles. A great example is Metro's massive hit with Future, Mask Off. I did not realize this track was produced by Metro Boom, and this is one of my favorite beats. That little flute riff is just so iconic and catchy.

And I've always enjoyed it because the kind of rawness of Futures flow on this his evidence from the very beginning. He's just like talking about mood and mind-altering drugs from the very start in this way that it's kind of both celebratory, I guess, or sort of like party-motivated or something, but also like kind of sad and melancholy and like aware of the kind of pleasure and peril of using these substances. this beat with its like melancholy flute line, I just feel like it's such a perfect accompaniment

to this rather ambivalent song that became such a big hit. Right, and I think that duality, you know, the melancholic nature of the production with the revelatory nature of the lyrics and the celebration of the drugs, that is an important part of why Metro is so fascinating because he's able to bring in these different emotions into his beats and craft

these songs that are able to speak both to the pessimistic and the optimistic because a song like Jump Man, you know, it's a Bragg song. And Jump Man, that's a reference to Michael Jordan, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So they're like celebrating, but the beat is so dark and eerie. It directly contrasts with that. Yeah, you can hear in these productions that Metro Boomin is not just making kind of a background track and accompaniment. His beats are like an integral part of the sound and the identity of these tracks.

And I can see that he would have designs to be something more than just a behind-the-scenes producer. So Masked Off comes out in 2017. And it's also around this time that Metro has begun to retreat from the spotlight. He's already had a number one at this point, like we said, with Bad and Bougy. And he's already established himself as one of the biggest producers in hip-hop. But he goes off the grid, posts cryptic messages about being retired, billboards begin to crop up in Atlanta and New York, referring to Metro as a missing person. and however taggy or non-tacky these may be,

it's all promo for the next logical step in his career, which is his solo debut record, not all heroes wear capes. The album hit number one on the Billboard 200 and featured everyone from frequent collaborators like 21 Savage on songs like Don't Come Out the House. Bang outside, I hang outside. Don't come out the house because the gang.

To collaborators out of left field like Jay Balvin and WizKid. That song's called Only You. And in these two songs, Only You and Don't Come Out the House, we see drastically different genres be brought together by the sound of Metro Boomin. Don't Come Out the House is more of a traditional Metro beat. There's immediate similarities in the out-of-tune tinny piano up top to songs like, Jumpman. But even within the song, there's little flares, like a piano switchup midway, that make the song a little bit more interesting. And the same touchstones are present on the

Jay Balvin and WizKid track, Jay Balvin, of course, being a reggaeton artist from Colombia, WizKid being an Afrobeats artist from Nigeria, and bringing these sounds together allows Metro Boomin to turn the track into this dance hall regaton hybrid. Personally, I find the only U-B kind of fascinating. It's like if you took dance hall off of the island and placed it in like a dark room

to fester for months. That's the vibe that I get from only you. Hermetic dance hall, yeah. That's a very unique sound. We could see experimentation kind of all over this record. It's very subtle, but it keeps things interesting.

And Nets Metro, a number one, platinum album. It shows his ability to break out of the jumpman mold, so to speak. And when we come back from break, we'll look more into Metro's experimental productions. Attention, Spotify. Has arrived on the new Good Girl Jasmine Absolute of Caroline Herrera, a fragrance intense with character gourmet and addictive. Imagine a jasmine emvolventy, caramelized, and tonka-tostada. A combination that seduce from the first instant and he has a wella.

Good Girl Jasmine Absolute, If Notting. So coming off a Metro Boomin's number one record, I think there's a distinct shift in his output from here on out. His credits get more varied, and we can begin to see Metro dabble in genres and sounds outside of trap. He's expressed in interviews a frustration with the way his image as a producer was portrayed because of his previous hits. In an interview with GQ in 2022, he said, I love R&B music. I love making this. I love making that.

He went on to say, why would I want to do something that I already did in reference to Jump Map? So we're beginning to see from him a desire for him to break out of his mold and do something different. Okay, so this is like Metro Boomin Unchained.

Yeah, you could say that. Where do we start? Well, in 2018, this is crazy. He does a random remix of Hold Me Now by the Thompson Twins. Wait, the Thompson twins. Aren't they from Tintin? Tintin. Thompson twins from Tintin.

They're a British pop band from Sheffield from the 80s. Oh, yeah, them too. I think they are also characters in Tintin, but I'm sure you're talking about the former. So let's check it out. What is going on here? Nah, it cracks me of because if there's something I would peg to be the complete opposite of Metro Boomin's like whole shtick,

Up to this point, it's 80s British pop group Thompson Twins. This remix sounds like there's two artists diametrically opposed, opposite ends of the spectrum, at odds with one another, right from the beginning of the track. It's so fascinating. I hear that the tension between Metro Boomin's horror spooky bass and this bright, British vocal is so bizarre. Like, why, out of all the songs in history, did he remix this one? Or is that just between Metro Boomin and God? I'm sure there's a good reason, but, yeah, I feel like it's so random.

I guess it's a testament to his, you know, all-encompass holistic ears. You know, he's going to surprise you by the things that he's into. But it shows you, like, how deep his musical knowledge is. is, I think. Totally. And after this Thompson-Twinton's remix, not to give him more credit than it deserves, but Metro Vuman then continues to really spread his wings. At this point, he's kind of a household name in the hip-hop, pop, and R&B worlds, allowing him to collaborate with artists like Solange on a song like Stayflow. And also James Blake producing two tracks on his 2019 album, assume form, including the song Tell Them with Moses Sumney.

That is extremely my shit, Rihanna. That's so cool. I mean, props to Metro Boomin. He's doing exactly what he set out to do. He's breaking out of his jumpman mold and showing different sides of his craft, creating these dark brooding, pop songs, R&B inflected, little experimental, little indie. It's like, there's a lot going on. in here and I love the surprising combination of all these elements.

But what's wild is that while he's also doing this, he's still netting number ones. He produced four songs on the weekend's album After Hours, and this includes Heartless, which top the Billboard Hot 100. And this weekend track is at direct contrast with the work that he's doing with more avant-garde artists. So Metro's working it at both ends here. He's doing his Utre experimental album cuts, and then he's turning around and producing number one hits for the weekend. Impressive stuff. And the thing is, on these album tracks, Metro is still using his production staples.

It's particularly apparent on the James Blake track, Tell Them. Overbearing 808s coupled with the dark. synthesizers. But he's also not bound by this eerie sonic palette because the salonge track, StayFlo, is much more laid back and upbeat. And this sonic diversity that Metro Boomin has adopted in recent years is most apparent on his latest record, Heroes and Villains. So you might remember his first album is called Not All Heroes Wear Caps. And then his latest album is called Heroes and Villains. So a definite thematic arc here, tales of heroism, but also their foil, the villain.

Yeah, and his GQ interview positions him as a key figure in making Atlanta the hip-hop capital of the world. And there's this great line in it that's, quote, with heroes and villains, Metro throws down the gauntlet while putting back on his uniform. Music didn't need a new savior. The old one just had to return, end quote. That's cool. The hero villain dichotomy really captures what we've been hearing in his production so far,

these like kind of horror elements mixed with these like really bright, lyrical melodies. That like that is like that duality is his sound to a degree. So it's cool that he's making these narrative references to it. Yeah, and he's kind of gesturing at this larger self. importance through the imagery of the album. The cover of the record is a riff on Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here, which features two men shaking hands and one is on fire. Yes.

Metro's cover is the same, but flipped, where the man on fire is on the left instead of the right, and it's against a black backdrop instead of the classic studio lot image. So we know he's into Thompson twins, Pink Floyd, perhaps something of an angle file, you know, working with James Blake, just throwing it out there, Metro Boomin, perhaps. Keep calm and Metro Boomin on. Indeed, yes. But if I'm allowed to put on my film school hat here for a second. We'll allow it.

By changing the imagery of Wish You Were Here to this kind of darker version that he's using on the cover of heroes and villains, we could probably make a guess to say that Metro Booman is self-aware, And he's kind of leaning into this mythos that comes with these classic rock artists by evoking the pastiche in the cover and general vibe of this album. And in the process, he's kind of placing himself on the same tier as these iconic music-shaping artists by evoking the same imagery. I'm buying what you're selling, Rihanna. That rings true to me. But these connections extend into the music as well as the visuals. The album features the song Creepin, which we previously talked about a while ago on chartbreakers.

And if you think the song sounds familiar, you're right. It's essentially a cover of Mario Weinin's I Don't Want to Know featuring P. Didi and Enya, whose song Boadicea is used as the sample. Okay, I thought that sounded familiar. There it is. Yeah, this song, I Don't Want to Know, was incredibly popular, hit number two on Billboard. But Creepin is essentially, I don't want to know, just Metro Boomified. Like, instead of a verse from Diddy, it's a verse from 21 Savage. The weekend sings the exact same lines. But if you listen to the original, I don't want to know has more organic instruments.

There's piano. There's a violin. The Metro Boomin take on it is slower, and the violin is switched to an eerie, pheromine-like whistle. Check it out. It's been boomified. I totally hear it. Yeah. It's the the acoustic has become synthetic and some of the more organic elements of the track have become a little more digitized. So it takes the kind of millennial vibe of the original and puts it firmly in the 2020s. It's a little, it's a little darker, honestly. Absolutely. It kind of transforms this emotional lament into something dark and brooding and creeping in comparison to, I don't want to know,

feels very imposing and enveloping. It's like if you ran, I don't want to know, through a Spirit Halloween, like we previously said. Spirit Halloween filter. So you would listen to Creepin, right, as it's been the big single from Heroes and Villains, and you would think, wow, maybe this whole album sounds like that. But I'm here to tell you that is not true because much like you can't put baby in a corner, you cannot put Betro Boomin in a box. The sonic pivot and versatility on this record is the most apparent in Heroes and Villains album opener on Time featuring John Legend. So Nate, need to know your thoughts.

What are you thinking when you hear this track? I'm hearing like gospel meets Atlanta trap sound and it's working. I mean, it makes me feel like Metro Boomin's not just a producer. He's like, he's a composer, you know? He's got a musical vision. And I think with this song, he pulls it off. I like those elements together. Yeah, they're mad nice.

And we've never seen him do a collaboration like this before. He's produced for Coldplay and Selena Gomez, but that's the only thing that we can even tangentially relate to this sound that's happening. This collab with John Legend is different and new for him. John Legend sings over no percussion, over a gospel choir on the track, about a minute in. And when the percussion finally comes in, it's not trap beats immediately, but stomp, clap, gospel percussion. You know, it's very organic. Yeah. You said Metro Booming can't be put in a box.

And that's a cool term and phrase because in the box is also a reference to working with completely digital tools and like a digital audio workstation like Ableton or something. And so he's showing that he's literally out of the box. He's not just in the computer. He's in, you know, the recording studio with live musicians, with arrangements, with orchestrations. he's literally and figuratively out of the box. And even historically, looking at his output thus far, on time is a lot more optimistic sounding than his previous productions, and maybe that comes from him drawing from gospel.

But we've talked about, you know, even on the James Blake track, he kind of transforms these productions into dark sonic soundscapes. Here, and maybe it's John Legend, maybe it's the genres he's pulling from, but the track is hopeful in a way that I think is really nuanced for Metro. Leading more into the hero side of the heroes and villains' duality. Exactly, but the song then takes the villain angle, devolving into a stormy pessimistic beat that we've come to know Metro Boomin for. All the villains is grinning.

All my niggas is winning. It's this dichotomy that fascinates me about Metro. It's the light with the dark, the familiar, with the unfamiliar, and that keeps me on my toes. Maybe that's like how Metro is always looking to stay relevant. You know, maybe that's why he's always able to net these A-list collabs, net top-chart positions, because he's always trying to keep us as the listener on our toes.

You know, whether it be working with John Legend, or 21 Savage or even Solange. Yeah, I feel like what I've been hearing in all these Metro Boomin tracks you've been playing is someone who isn't just like there to create a catchy beat. He's like there to like tell a story. And I feel like this really pays off, right? Because he goes from heroes and villains

to scoring the soundtrack of a literal marvel superhero, Spider-Man. And one of the spider-verse things, I'm not going to pretend like I know the title of it. multi-spidered intra-superverse or something? Spider-Man across the Spider-Worse. You were close. Okay, thank you.

Thank you across the Spider-Verse. I feel like I had most of the words in there. So it's like, I mean, whether he was angling for that or not by, like, leaning into this heroic kind of theme, it's, it's, he's doing the thing. He's, he's setting up this whole, like, little universe for himself. It's very canny. Yeah, and to bring back his GQ quote from earlier about not being tied into the sound of Jumpman. I do think that when people think of Metro Boomin, they tend to picture Atlanta

trap music, especially from the back half of the 2010s. And that's true. However, his sound, as we've discussed, is much more interesting than a lot of people give him credit for. He doesn't get the same amount of flowers that someone like Farrell or Mark Ronson and pop gets, but his multi-genre sound and ubiquity and vibe and sonic palette kind of warrant that praise. Well, you know what's cool about that, Rianne? It's like those other figures, Pharrell, Mark Ronson, Timbalin, the producers that can have that kind of name status and can have their own albums and their own features and have their names alongside the rappers and the singers, they tend to, do at least some level of singing and rapping themselves.

Whereas Metro Boomin is like a little bit apart from that because as far as I know, am I correct? Certainly none of the examples that we've heard today do we actually hear his voice. Yeah. Even his producer tag is someone else, right? It's future. Right. So he's not like putting himself on these tracks in the sense of like, here, let me give you a verse.

Let me give you a chorus. the way that even Timbaland, who's like still pretty in the background, we'll do, you know. He'll like give a little hook at some point in a Justin Timberlake song or something. Right, right. But Metro Boomin's like, no, I'm going to remain in the background. I'm going to be, you know, turning the knobs and the faders, giving the master narrative, putting these tracks together. You're not actually going to hear me, but I'm still going to put my name on the record.

That is like kind of a different thing. kind of a different flex and maybe puts him, if not alone, as the behind-the-scenes producer with a brand name, certainly in a pretty rarefied camp of the pop hip-hop world. He's kind of in a category of his own, you know, and he's kind of carving out his own lane in the 2020s that perhaps was previously unpaved. Now when I listen to the radio and I hear one of the, these Metro Boomin tracks, it's cool because I'll be able to say like, oh, here's those dark horror synths. Here's that producer tag. Here's that dichotomy of light and dark. You've taken this behind the scenes figure and brought him into the light. It's going to change the way I listen

to his track. So this has been a very enlightening discussion. Enlightening, no pun intended. It couldn't be helped. This episode was brought to you by AMP, Amazon's Live radio app. Switchdown Pop is produced by the one and only Rihanna Cruz. Hey, that's me. Brandon McFarland is our engineer. Art Chung edits the show. Abby Bardos, community management, and Iris Gottlieb makes our awesome illustrations. We are a production of Vulture and the Vox Media Podcast Network.

And Nishat Kurwa executive produces the whole shebang. You can find those anywhere you get your podcast. and on social media at Switched on Pop. And if you feel so inclined, tell us what your favorite Metro Boomin track is. Like I said before, my personal favorite is Future's Wicked. But, you know, I'm open to discussion. We'll be back on Tuesday with an episode exploring the work of another Atlanta artist with a very different sound, Faye Webster.

That's going to be a really fun conversation. So be sure to tune in. And until then, all we can say is thanks for listening. That's our producer tag, Rihanna. It's not sexy, but, you know, it'll do. It's true. It'll do. It's true.