The 25 Best Rap Beats of The Last 5 Years

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Complex Original

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Hip-hop production has exploded into a million different directions in the last five years due to the ever percolating influence of Atlanta's trap music cottage industry, the birth of Chicago drill, the resurrection of the West Coast as a commercial superpower, new New York's growing fixation on Texas trill, the OVOXO squad's coronation in Toronto, and the valiant efforts of thousands of lesser known producers making beats in bedrooms and basements all over the world.

Where back in the day getting a beat to a rapper was a matter of luck and good connections, in the 2010s, it can be as easy as shooting a message out on social media or getting a hit on Bandcamp. Chief Keef selected a beat for his major label debut after searching the name of the then-unreleased Finally Rich on Soundcloud. 16-year-old newcomer Wondagurl landed a beat on Jay Z's Magna Carta...Holy Grail after a series of email exchanges with Canadian beatsmith Boi-1da and Kanye West protégé Travi$ Scott. The walls around rap's mainstream are thinner than they've been in over a decade, and rap's gotten delightfully weird as a result.

The following is a list of the best rap beats of the last five years, an era where a new vanguard of self-made producers like Lex Luger and Young Chop hold court on the radio with legacy hip-hop maestros like the Neptunes, Just Blaze, Kanye West, etc. Hit us up in the comments to let us know what you think should've placed differently, what should've been left out, what we missed, and whatever else comes to mind. Until then, here are The 25 Best Rap Beats of The Last 5 Years.

Written by Craig Jenkins (@CraigSJ)

Listen to Complex's Best Rap Beats playlists here: YouTube/Spotify/Rdio

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25. A-Trak f/ Juicy J & Danny Brown "Piss Test" (2012)

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Producer: A-Trak
Album: N/A
Label: Fools Gold

Fool's Gold head honcho A-Trak recently wrote a candid editorial about how rap's preoccupation with drugs worries him as a non-user, but his reservations are measured: he recently signed Detroit's Danny Brown, who's as candid about his use of drugs as A-Trak is about his abstinence. The two collaborated on "Piss Test" last year with help from trap's randy uncle Juicy J.

"Piss Test" flips the finger to parole officers, whose state-ordained mandatory drug testing is a permanent damper on their partying. A-Trak's beat is all clanging industrial percussion with chunky, flatulent synths carrying all the melody. The track's bound to inspire a good grip of the reckless consumption Danny and Juicy J described in their lyrics. For bonus credit, peep the tranced out Flosstradamus remix off this year's Fool's Gold Loosies comp, which swaps Danny out for New York spitters El-P, Jim Jones (yes, of Dipset), and Flatbush Zombies.

24. Killer Mike f/ Bun B, T.I., & Trouble "Big Beast" (2012)

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Producer: El-P
Album: R.A.P. Music
Label: Williams Street Recordings

Former Definitive Jux head El-P and Dungeon Family alumnus Killer Mike met on a whim when a mutual acquaintance had a eureka moment and introduced the pair. A brief meeting quickly turned into work on a whole album, Mike's excellent 2012 comeback R.A.P. Music, with El on the all the beats. (They've since banded together as Run the Jewels and released a blistering self-titled album.) The first salvo from the duo still ranks among the best.

R.A.P. Music's opener "Big Beast" sneaks in on a clattering, choppy synth and then steadily expands until the drums drop and whatever speakers it's playing out of can scarcely contain the wall of sound. El's explosive synthesis of old school production values, pure unadulterated noise and keyboard wizardry is enough to send Mike's imposing frame pinballing around the stage in live shows (quite the sight), and it might be the weirdest beat veteran co-stars T.I. and Bun B have ever lent verses to.

23. Wiz Khalifa "Black And Yellow" (2010)

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Producer: StarGate
Album: Rolling Papers
Label: Rostrum, Atlantic

"Black & Yellow" is a peculiar record not for Wiz Khalifa, who'd already developed a pedigree for blunted party rap by the time the song saw release late in 2010, but for producers Stargate. Stargate had a formidable catalog of hits before hooking up with Wiz (six years worth of international smashes by Rihanna, Ne-Yo, Beyonce and more), but they'd never worked exclusively with a rapper before.

"Black & Yellow" paired muted, clipped drums with tasteful synths and bells that sounded like clocks chiming for a beat that flirted with EDM while remaining anchored in hip-hop. It was a slow-boiling hit at first, creeping onto the Billboard singles charts in earnest, but the song's explicit support of the Pittsburgh Steelers (whose team colors are—as you already know—black and yellow) in a season where they made it to the Superbowl helped power it to the top of the charts and further on to triple platinum status.

22. Clipse f/ Cam'ron, Pharrell "Popular Demand (Popeyes)" (2009)

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Producer: The Neptunes
Album: Til The Casket Drops
Label: Re-Up, Star Trek, Columbia

The final single off Till the Casket Drops, the Clipse's last album (for now, anyhow) found the Virginia duo of Malice and Pusha T matching wits with Harlem rap ambassador Cam'ron. The Neptunes came out swinging on the beat, an amalgam of live percussion, fluttering mariachi horns, and a piano line that bridges a meandering whimsy of the central melody of Boogie Down Productions' "The Bridge Is Over" to a chord progression reminiscent of Isaac Hayes' legendary, oft-sampled "Ike's Mood". "Popular Demand (Popeyes)" didn't set the charts on fire like it should've but it neatly closed out a ten year stretch of coke rap greatness from a group who never dumbed it down or kowtowed to radio to get by.

21. Chief Keef "Love Sosa" (2012)

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Producer: Young Chop
Album: Finally Rich
Label: Glory Boyz Entertainment, Interscope

Chief Keef and his Glory Boys Entertainment squad sailed into the popular hip-hop consciousness on the strength of the blunt force youth revolt of 2012's "I Don't Like," but when the time came for Keef to parlay the buzz of his debut into something commercially viable after signing with Interscope Records, the pressure was on.

Keef went back into the studio with "I Don't Like" producer Young Chop, but the duo shifted gears, trading the horror movie soundscapes for the skeletal swing of "Love Sosa." The trap drums of the harsher stuff were still present, but this time in service to ambient, barely there synths stalking the edges of the mix with scant blasts of melody. The versatility of Chop's sound quickly put him in high demand, and he has since gotten lucrative work crafting hits for Big Sean, Pusha T, French Montana and more.

20. Jay Z "D.O.A (Death of Auto-Tune)" (2009)

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Producer: No I.D.
Album: The Blueprint 3
Label: Roc Nation, Atlantic

When Jay-Z declared war on Auto-Tune in 2009, Kanye West mentor and Chicago rap innovator No I.D. blessed him with beautiful fight music on the production end. No I.D. looped up a gritty rock vamp for Jay to stunt over, all stomping drums and guitars and horns set to overdrive. "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)" played out like a powerhouse sequel to Jay & No ID's previous meeting of the minds, American Gangster's outsized Nas reunion "Success."

Jay's efforts were noble, and T-Pain's stock fell considerably in the song's immediate aftermath, but ultimately the sentiment didn't keep. The popular pitch correction technology had been around for over a decade by 2009 and wasn't going anywhere, as the success today of artists like Future has proven. Cats weren't just going to tuck in singing their raps because Jay said his don't have melodies. "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)" may not have succeeded fully as the corrective it intended to be, but now that the dust has settled, it has proven to be one of the better solo singles of Jay's post-retirement career resurgence.

19. Kreayshawn "Gucci Gucci" (2011)

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Producer: DJ Two Stacks
Album: Somethin' 'Bout Kreay
Label: Columbia

Stop. Breathe. This is a beats list. Not a raps list. Though the perfectly reasonable think piece circuit outrage surrounding Kreayshawn's White Girl Mob and the issues of cultural appropriation they drummed up in their wake were persistent and draining, "Gucci Gucci", the song that kicked off all the fuss, isn't. Say what you will about Kreayshawn as an artist (the 3,900 unit first week haul of her debut album spoke louder than words), but you can't hang any negative sentiments on producer DJ Two Stacks because the beat is undeniable.

Two Stacks' production is all throwback g-funk menace on the one hand, with ominous keys and vocal samples right out of the Dr. Dre playbook. But he quickly rolls dubstep's trademark wubs into the mix with the bassline, creating a production that leverages the musical history of Kreayshawn's native California with what at the time looked to be the future of electronic music.

18. Rocko f/ Future, Rick Ross "U.E.O.N.O" (2013)

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Producer: Childish Major
Album: Gift Of Gab 2
Label: A1 Recordings

Atlanta rapper Rocko owns A1 Recordings, one of the labels Future's signed to. The two linked up with Rick Ross for this year's "U.O.E.N.O." and scored both a major hit and a bit of national outrage. "U.O.E.N.O." crept up charts on the collision of Future's clever hook and producer Childish Major's extra-terrestrial soundscape, at once of a piece with the sounds coming from Atlanta's trap elite at the time but subtly unlike like any of it, really.

Childish Major's beat assembles an odd variety of wonky synths with jibing melodies and textures for what sounds like the score to a side-scrolling Nintendo outer space shooter from the '80s. Rap game Galaga soundtrack. But as the song took off, it drew outrage from groups incensed by a lyric from Rick Ross boasting about drugging and bedding a woman without consent. The lyric cost Ross a deal with Reebok (For a time, anyhow, as he appears to be back in their good graces), but somehow none of it stopped "U.O.E.N.O." from killing at radio and bowing out in the upper rungs of Billboard's Hot 100.

17. Juicy J f/ 2 Chainz, Lil Wayne "Bandz A Make Her Dance" (2012)

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Producer: Mike WiLL Made It
Album: Stay Trippy
Label: Taylor Gang, Kemosabe, Columbia

Many of the biggest hits of our era start out tucked away on free mixtapes. Juicy J's signature single "Bandz a Make Her Dance" began its life as a solo song in the deep end of his 2012 mixtape Blue Dream and Lean before getting bionic arms and legs attached in the form of a re-recorded single version with guest verses from Lil Wayne and 2 Chainz.

"Bandz" soared into top 40 thanks to capable contributions from its famous guests, but not to be counted out here is producer Mike WiLL Made It, whose somber trap production bounded with aquatic synths, brash hi-hats and a purposefully goofy snare sound. Before "Bandz," Mike WiLL was Atlanta rap's best kept secret, scoring symphonies for Future's exquisite Pluto. Afterward, he was helping A-list pop songstresses Rihanna and Miley Cyrus muddy up their sound with a little ATL grit.

16. Schoolboy Q f/ A$AP Rocky "Hands On The Wheel" (2012)

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Producer: Best Kept Secret
Album: Habits & Contradictions
Label: Top Dawg Entertainment

ScHoolboy Q and A$AP Rocky first squared off on the raucous "Brand New Guy" off Rocky's Live.Love.A$AP tape. When it came time for Q to release his own album, he sought out the Harlem MC to return the favor, and the duo came out with "Hands on the Wheel," the second single from 2012's excellent Habits & Contradictions.

Production on "Hands on the Wheel" was handled by the DC duo Best Kept Secret, best known for their work on the bulk of Wale's Mixtape About Nothing. "Hands on the Wheel" gets its central melody from folk singer Lissie's rousing live cover of Kid Cudi's maudlin 2009 single "Pursuit of Happiness." Best Kept Secret loops up the bits about rolling blunts and driving under the influence, and Q and Rocky follow suit with a song fully dedicated to getting shithoused on drugs and drink.

15. Riff Raff f/ Action Bronson "Bird On A Wire" (2012)

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14. Kanye West f/ Rick Ross "Devil In A New Dress" (2010)

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Producer: Bink!, Mike Dean
Album: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Label: Roc-A-Fella, Def Jam

"Devil in a New Dress" is one of a wealth of moments throughout Kanye West's fifth album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy that suggest we're experiencing something special. Bink!'s soulful production knocks, floating by on a sample of Smokey Robinson's rendition of "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" but it's really the midway point of the song that sends the album into the stratosphere.

The beat cuts out, then strings and guitars riff around the song's theme before the beat sneaks back in, Mike Dean takes a tasteful solo, and Rick Ross spits the verse of his career, Dean takes another solo, and the whole song cuts out mid-stride. It's a dirty trick, taking listeners to the heights "Devil in a New Dress" does and dropping us right back on our asses, but modern day Kanye is a master of sequencing who loves pulling these sharp turns in the middle of his albums.

13. Drake "Started From the Bottom" (2013)

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Producer: Mike Zombie, Noah "40" Shebib
Album: Nothing Was The Same
Label: OVO Sound, Young Money, Cash Money, Republic

Drake's "Started from the Bottom" is a triumph of minimalism. The beat's barely there, the lyrics are pared down and shouty, it's like Drake's own version of mid-2000s ringtone rap. Leading the way is newish OVO Sound signee Mike Zombie, whose production here loops up a short, new age-y piano line (that really sounds like someone starting up Windows on a PC) over sprightly 808 programming and a bassline that picks out a weird notes under the fore.

It's hooky and, above all else, insistent, the most immediate of all the songs Drake turned up on during the campaign leading to the release of his third album Nothing Was the Same. Chart impact was swift and heavy, and any rapper worth their snot got somebody to loop up those two open bars he left at the end so they could drop a freestyle and catch a bit of the wave.

12. A$AP Rocky "Peso" (2011)

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Producer: A$AP Ty Beats
Album: Live.Love.A$AP
Label: N/A

A$AP Rocky first made waves off the strength of the throwed purple drank worship of "Purple Swag," but it was the release of "Peso" off Rocky's debut mixtape Live.Love.A$AP that took the A$AP movement from Tumblr to the streets. Much of the success of "Peso" is a result of the work of A$AP Mob's in-house producer A$AP Ty Beats.

Ty lifted the shimmering intro off an '80s funk side from the S.O.S. Band, looped it and played with the tempo, arriving at a beat that's both narcotic and hypnotic, gleefully faded but also sorta partied out. "Peso" was the culmination of a slow move toward Southern rap values informing the music of artists that grew up in the North. Two years later French Montana's repping the Bronx with a full-on trap album, and A$AP Ferg's Trap Lord is in stores now merging Harlem swagger with Memphis sounds.

11. Tyga "Rack City" (2011)

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Producer: DJ Mustard
Album: Careless World: Rise Of The Last King
Label: Young Money, Cash Money, Universal Republic

Los Angeles ratchet music architect DJ Mustard got his start on the West Coast jerk scene, recording tracks with Ty Dolla $ign, YG, Pink Dollaz and more before catching the attention of Young Money foot soldier Tyga, who was readying his sophomore album Careless World: Rise of the Last King.

Mustard and Tyga linked up on "Rack City," which capitalized on the success of "The Motto" with Mustard cobbling together a curt descending bass line, some hi-hats and finger snaps as Tyga brags about throwing money around and unceremoniously kicking women out his car. Slight as it was, "Rack City" went on to sell two million copies, and it remains the biggest single of both artists' careers. In tandem with Drake's "The Motto," "Rack City" brought high BPM Cali dance rap out of the San Fernando Valley and into the country at large. The subsequent successes of artists like Problem and Ty$ may not have happened without it.

10. Meek Mill f/ Rick Ross "Ima Boss" (2011)

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Producer: Jahlil Beats
Album: Self Made Vol. 1
Label: Maybach Music Group, Warner Bros.

With the release of "Ima Boss", it seemed as if Philly shouter Meek Mill had finally found his "Get at Me, Dog," a beat reckless enough to cater to his boundless energy but hooky enough to usher him into rap's commercial elite. The Jahlil Beats production did a little bit of both. Released deep in the singles campaign for Self Made, Vol. 1, Maybach Music Group's inaugural label compilation, "Ima Boss" and its pyoom-pyoom synth fanfare, rubbery bass swell, and start-stop snares provided the perfect launch pad for Meek's barely contained mania.

It also made a respectable dent at radio and on the charts, setting the stage for Meek's successful run as a solo artist last year. By the end of the summer of 2011, "Ima Boss" could be heard tumbling out of car speakers across the country, and for a while afterward DJs would drop it into their sets as a quick pick-me-up when crowds looked like they weren't sufficiently turnt.

9. Kendrick Lamar f/ Jay Rock "Money Trees" (2012)

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Producer: DJ Dahi
Album: good kid, m.A.A.d city
Label: Top Dawg Entertainment, Aftermath, Interscope

The worlds of hip-hop and indie rock have edged closer together in recent years as a result of the more diverse listening habits that Youtube affords fans and also thanks to producers' adventurous sampling habits. "Money Trees" from Kendrick Lamar's critically acclaimed major label debut good kid, m.A.A.d city found DJ Dahi, who also produced Dom Kennedy's based, faded "My Type of Party," snatching a swatch of "Silver Soul" by Baltimore indie rock band Beach House and running it around backwards over bass, 808s, and cowbells.

The end result is a sad, weird, and vaguely Southern sounding track that might've found a home on one of those quirky latter day OutKast albums had the source material been available at the time. Dahi's beat fit the somber, reflective mode of the album hand in glove, and Kendrick and Jay Rock blacked out over it to the point where the jury's still out over who had the best verse.

8. Lil B "I'm God" (2009)

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7. DJ Khaled f/ Drake, Lil Wayne, Rick Ross "I'm On One" (2011)

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Producer: T-Minus, Noah "40" Shebib, Nikhil Seetharam
Album: We The Best Forever
Label: We The Best, Terror Squad, Cash Money, Universal Motown

Oftentimes hip-hop producers have pet sounds, musical quirks that let you know who produced the track without looking at liner notes or hearing a telling producer tag at the beginning of the song. For Canadian producer and frequent Drake collaborator T-Minus, it's squelching synths, which you can hear from early tracks like Drake and Trey Songz' 2006 single "Replacement Girl" on through more recent work like Lil Wayne and 2 Chainz' "Rich As Fuck."

The T-Minus sound got a touch complex on DJ Khaled's 2011 smash "I'm on One". The track pairs T-Minus with Drake's go-to producer, Noah "40" Shebib. T-Minus' signature keys and ambient low end form the muscle here, but moody chords from 40 flesh out the mix. It adds an air of melancholy that Drake immediately picks up on in the hook, a minor key ode to partying that's full of as much excitement as resignation.

6. Waka Flocka Flame "Hard In Da Paint" (2010)

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Producer: Lex Luger
Album: Flockaveli
Label: 1017 Brick Squad, Asylum, Warner Bros.

"Hard in da Paint" put both Lex Luger and Waka Flocka Flame on the map with its reckless abandon and guttural sonics. Both the lyrics and the production seemed to crystallize the preceding five years of gritty Southern street rap into a rawer, more volatile solution, all gruff menace and very little concern for finesse or melody.

The horns that bellow out the central lick roll in like supervillain theme music, quick and blunt as an unexpected body shot, while hyperactive hi-hats skate overhead. It all seems to signify destruction, and Waka gets it, running down impending acts of sex and violence while stacks on stacks of ad-libs shout back at him like funhouse mirror distortions. "Hard in da Paint" and the accompanying album Flockaveli charted modestly, but both are watershed moments in 2010s trap's rise to dominance.

5. Tyler, The Creator "Yonkers" (2011)

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Producer: Tyler Okonma
Album: Goblin
Label: XL

Tyler, the Creator's debut single "Yonkers" is the perfect distillation of the Odd Future ethos. In four minutes you get post-Eminem celebrity ribbing, snarling menace, showy chords, open Neptunes homage and punk rock's twin towers of misanthropy and nihilism. How Tyler managed to pile horror movie synth stabs, zooming Pharrell-ish keys and knocking boom bap drums into the production while still finding ways to shoehorn airy, jazzy piano breakdowns into the mix is a mystery alone.

That they all gelled to create the orgy of disorder that anchors the bratty malaise of Tyler's lyrics is the real magic of "Yonkers." The song appeared at a time when people had begun to question whether the Odd Future kids had the chops to deliver music that lived up to their tremendous hype, and it immediately put the doubters to rest.

4. G.O.O.D. Music "Mercy" (2012)

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Producer: Lifted, Mike Dean, Mike MiLL Made It, Kanye West, Hudson Mohawke
Album: Cruel Summer
Label: GOOD Music, Def Jam

The dancehall obsession that made Kanye West's Yeezus such a colorful affair is a thread that can be traced back throughout his entire production career, but one of the illest Kanye dancehall moments came from outside producers. "Mercy," the lead single off 2012's G.O.O.D. Music compilation Cruel Summer was produced by a football team's worth of artists: Phoenix based newcomer Lifted, Rap-a-Lot veteran Mike Dean, trap lord Mike WiLL Made It, British electronic whiz Hudson Mohawke, a little help from Ye himself... It isn't exactly clear what everybody did, but the production on "Mercy" kills.

The beat fits some of dancehall artist Super Beagle's legendary "Dust a Sound Boy" toast over sparse keys and drums until Kanye comes in, and an ominous sample of the Scarface movie score drags the thing to the gates of hell. Like the rest of Cruel Summer, the blend of dancehall, trap, and house Kanye presented with "Mercy" devised a workable vision for truly post-regional hip-hop music.

3. Jay Electronica "Exhibit C" (2009)

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Producer: Just Blaze
Album: Exhibit C - EP
Label: Control Freaq Records, Decon Media, Inc.

After all the the Nepalese mountain travels and courting of old money heiresses that have slowly usurped Jay Electronica's rap career, it's easy to forget that there was a moment we thought he was poised for a rap takeover. That moment was December 2009, when he released "Exhibit C," then presumed to be a single off his still-yet-to-be-released debut album Act II: Patents of Nobility. "Exhibit C" was widely hailed as an instant classic, an autobiographical tour de force from Electronica flanked by one of the best Just Blaze productions in recent memory.

Blaze layers a warbling sample of the vocals and strings from soul balladeer Billy Stewart's "Cross My Heart" over hard-knocking drums, gleefully shouting over the beat between Elec's verses like Diddy on Biggie's "Who Shot Ya?" Elec says the song was knocked out in fifteen minutes for a premiere on New York radio personality Angela Yee's Sirius show. The duo never made the appearance, but the song still got considerable airplay on New York radio, a big deal for a blisteringly lyrical conscious rap anthem released on an indie.

2. Jay-Z & Kanye West "Niggas In Paris" (2011)

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Producer: Hit-Boy, Kanye West, Mike Dean, Anthony Kilhoffer
Album: Watch The Throne
Label: Roc-A-Fella, Roc Nation, Def Jam

Surf Club general Hit-Boy made some decent headway as a hip-hop producer since Polow the Don took the SoCal native under his wing in the mid-2000s, most notably providing heat for Lil Wayne and Eminem on their 2008 Top 40 smash "Drop the World" and blessing Kanye West and his G.O.O.D. Music squad with crisp boom bap for the G.O.O.D. Friday Christmas single "Christmas in Harlem." But it was the triple-platinum selling "Niggas in Paris" off Jay-Z and Kanye's Watch the Throne that made Hit-Boy one of rap's most sought after hitmakers.

The song's bombastic drums (methodical snares and hi-hats, explosions where there should be kick hits) paired with Hit-Boy's now-trademark synth squelch and a choice vocal sample (pulled from an old Alan Lomax field recording of a 1950s Southern Baptist church service) to make the hit of the summer of 2011.

"Niggas in Paris" was so ubiquitous that by the end of the year celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow and Alec Baldwin found themselves in hot water for the mere utterance of the song's title, while Jay and Ye found themselves in the middle of a tour that saw them performing the song between five and ten times a night, back to back to roaring crowds.

1. Rick Ross f/ Styles P "B.M.F (Blowin' Money Fast)" (2010)

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Producer: Lex Luger
Album: Teflon Don
Label: Maybach Music Group, Slip-n-Slide, Def Jam

While Rick Ross was cutting his teeth on increasingly lavish and intricately layered productions in the late 2000s, he also kept tabs on the strides being made in uncompromisingly brutal Southern drug rap by producer Lex Luger. Rozay was an early adopter of the Luger sound, collaborating with the Virginia native on "B.M.F. (Blowing Money Fast)" for 2010's free Albert Anastasia EP.

When Ross' outsized drug dealer posturing and the sinister, lumbering thump of Luger's production rewarded them with one of the hottest songs of the summer, the song was quickly mastered for inclusion on Ross' fourth album Teflon Don, standing alongside the album's other Luger production "MC Hammer" as a stark double-shot of hellish industrial menace on an album otherwise filled with posh yacht music. The album and the single performed well and were instrumental in Luger's climb from local renown among Southern rap aficionados to hip-hop ubiquity.

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