Watch and Learn: 10 Producers Explain How They Made Your Favorite Beats

Find out how the beats for songs like Drake's "Furthest Thing" and Meek Mill's "Burn" were made from the producers who made them.

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Where does the strange synth noise on Rocko’s “UOENO” come from? What about the drums on J. Cole’s “Power Trip?” Or the chanting on Travi$ $cott’s “Uptown?” Producing a dope hip hop beat sounds like a simple task, but it isn't. How do the producers behind the boards figure how just how to get that right sound for that beat you can't get out of your head? Here’s your chance to find out. We dug up 10 videos with the producers behind some of today’s biggest songs breaking down their creative processes. We can’t promise that watching will give you the skills to produce your own hit record, but who knows? Listen hard enough and you might just pick up a trick or two. Watch and learn...

Written by Henry Green (@jvathlete) & Sydney Yeo (@yeobites)

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Album: Born Sinner

What are you doing from 4 to 6 a.m.? J. Cole is all business. "We flew to L.A just to play this shit for [No I.D.]," he explains in this video. "N**ga stood up and clapped. I was like, 'Fuck yeah, that's gold!'" There's a reason why we ranked it No. 8 on our list of The 50 Best Songs of 2013. In this video, J. Cole breaks down the making of "Power Trip," with a good ol' level-smashing 808 kick and that catchy riff which loops throughout the track. Hold out to 7:00, where Cole plays a beat he made for Jay-Z which is unlike anything you'd think Jay would rap over. —Sydney Yeo

Album: Dreamchasers 2

A year after having Twitter beef with Meek Mill in 2011, 23-year-old producer Jahlil Beats made peace and then made a hit single with Meek Mill. In the clip, Jahlil shows us a grand piano sample buried at the end you may not have heard before and how he looked to the TR-808 for "that crazy kick." "When I made the track, I had heard the first record, 'Gasoline,' and I was just rocking to that jam," he said. "I was like, 'Yo, we should make a Part II!'" —Sydney Yeo

Album: Watch the Throne

"Murder to Excellence" is one of the most overtly political songs on Watch the Throne, addressing Kanye and Jay-Z's experience as transcendence as rich black men in America. The song is in two parts, with Swizz Beatz contributing the first half and the second portion coming from Houston's S1. In the clip, S1 discusses making the beat and traveling to London and Australia to work with Kanye and Jay on the song. He also rubs his hands in slow motion a lot. —Henry Green

Album: Nothing Was the Same

The second half of Drake's "Furthest Thing" strays from Nothing Was The Same's clean synth template with a choppy soul beat from Seattle producer Jake One. In this "Making Of" segment, he talks about how he linked up with Drake and why he turned to Pro Tools to make the "Furthest Thing" instrumental. —Henry Green

Album: Gift of Gab 2

"U.E.O.E.N.O." has the honor of being Rocko's highest-charting single (it peaked at No. 20 on the US BIllboard Hot 100) and one of Future's most successful singles. It's weird, woozy, and sinister, and it was produced by Childish Major, who we featured on our list of 25 New Producers To Watch For. In this video, Childish Major talks about using Logic's Omnisphere instrument to make the "weird little lead" in the track, avoiding "typical" sounds, and the greatest part of success being "working with artists [he's] always wanted to work with." —Sydney Yeo

Album: Owl Pharoah

There aren't many female producers working in hip-hop, and still fewer that are 16-years-old besides Wondagurl, the Canadian producer who got her big break sending material to Travi$ $cott. Here she discusses her work on his A$AP Ferg collaboration, "Uptown." —Henry Green

Album: Best Day Ever

These days Mac Miller largely avoids making records as poppy as the upbeat "Donald Trump," but when he released it in 2011 it became a massive indie hit. It remains the biggest song Pennsylvania producer SAP has ever produced. Here SAP plays the original Sufjan Stevens sample for "Donald Trump" and demonstrates how he flipped it into the beat we know today. —Henry Green

Album: Progression 2: A Young Texas Playa

Kirko Bangz's syrupy, Drake-esque hit "Drank in My Cup" contained lots of references to Bangz's native Houston, so it's not surprising that the beat came from a local production team. Houston's own Sound M.O.B. explains their lush production in this clip. —Henry Green

Album: Don't Be S.A.F.E.

"All Gold Everything" remains Trinidad James's claim to fame. But the beat came from a relatively unknown producer out of Mississippi named Devon Gallaspy, who breaks down how he made it straight off his laptop in this video. —Henry Green

Album: Mastermind

Besides Hov's guest verse, there's a reason why the "The Devil Is A Lie" was the lead single from Rozay's sixth studio album Mastermind—it's grandiose, majestic, and massive, a.k.a. all the things we expect from Ross. There was some drama when the single dropped in December 2013 over whether K.E. On The Track had stolen the beat from Major Seven, complete with a fake video of K.E. supposedly "making the beat." It turned out the beat was indeed a Major Seven production. Peep the real beat-making video here, as the Atlanta-based producer chops up "Don't Let Your Love Fade Away" by Gene Williams with a Maschine pad and some guitar he samples on the spot. —Sydney Yeo

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