Despite having the same name as an infamous villain from the gangster flick Carlito's Way, 23-year-old Benjamin "Benny Blanco" Levin isn't a rapper. In fact, until recently, the Virgina native was best known for producing pop records for the likes of Katy Perry, Vanessa Hudgens, and Justin Bieber. But just like Norwegian pop production duo Stargate—who rose to fame producing for Beyonce, Rihanna, and also Katy Perry—Blanco found himself in the studio with Wiz Khalifa as he set out to record his major label debut, Rolling Papers. While Stargate produced the number one hit "Black and Yellow," Blanco produced RP's third single, "No Sleep," which immediately became the number one song on iTunes when it was released a week before the album dropped, and currently sits at number 17 on the Billboard Hot 100. Complex got on the horn with the New York-based beatsmith to talk about how he got down with Wiz.
As told to Insanul Ahmed (@Incilin)
On producing Wiz Khalifa's "No Sleep"
"About a year ago or so, a couple of my boys from Atlantic Records put me up on Wiz. Obviously, I knew his earlier work and the stuff he was doing, like the singing and all that. But they really put me up on him. One of their friends is a DJ and he gave me one of Wiz's mixtapes and I listened to it and was like, ‘This dude is the shit.’ This was just before [Kush & Orange Juice came out]. So like a week after [I listened to his music], we got in the studio.
