The 20 Best DJ Mustard Tracks

DJ Mustard is running hip-hop. 

It might not look like it on Billboard's hip-hop charts, although that's a deceptive measure these days; rap artists who don't make any noise on hip-hop radio—like Macklemore—get thrown into the mix. But step into any club in 2014, and you're liable to hear back-to-back-to-back Mustard jams. What Lex Luger was for 2010-2011, and Mike Will was to 2012-2013, Mustard has become for 2014, the default sound of popular hip-hop music, reclaiming the title from Atlanta for the West Coast for the first time in many years.

One of the most important innovations of Mustard's beat style was his creation of a new, interchangeable groove— complete with the signature "Mustard on the beat hoe" voiced by YG. It sounds counter-intuitive; why is creating one pattern and using it over and over an "innovation"? The answer: The static rhythmic bed draws your attention to the variation that flourishes around it. The DJ can shift from song to song without ever losing dance floor momentum. It was an innovation directed at the clubs—creating a baseline to play with. And Mustard's success forced producers to search for ways to contend with that framework, either by emulating it, or by intentionally going against the grain. Either way, it's Mustard's world; we're just living in it.

Listen to Complex's Best DJ Mustard songs playlists here: YouTube/Spotify/Rdio

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Mixtape: DJ Mustard and Teeflii, Fireworks (2013)

Mustard's silly, repetitive sax keyboard riff is the perfect level of nasty for a song about hitting it from the back from unproven R&B singer Teeflii. From his impressive 4th of July-released Fireworks tape, the song has a catchy insistence thanks to a lead instrument that suggests the sounds of classic Swizz Beatz gone ratchet. —David Drake 

Mixtape: DJ Mustard, Ketchup (2013)

Last June, DJ Mustard chose to kick off his star-studded Ketchup mixtape with a showcase for a newer artist, Lil Snupe, the Louisiana teenager signed to Meek Mill's Dream Chasers imprint. Less than three weeks after Ketchup's release, Lil Snupe was gunned down at the age of 18, tragically cutting short a promising career and leaving behind a relatively small amount of music. The Ketchup intro stands as a testament to Snupe's relentless flow, as he fills the three minute track with bars, without ever pausing for a hook, over one of Mustard's more atmospheric productions. —Al Shipley

Mixtape: DJ Drama, Quality Street Music (2012)

DJ Drama's retail compilations have never had the impact on rap that his single artist mixtapes have (or, for that matter, the equivalent DJ Khaled albums). But his fourth album, 2012's Quality Street Music, was surprisingly true to its name, with an impressive set of singles and songs that sounded like they should have been hits. Buried at track 9 on the album, "Real Niggaz In The Building" could've been a worthy follow-up to the singles from Travis Porter's debut album. But at that point, Mustard's buzz wasn't at the point that his productions immediately hit the clubs upon release like they do now. —Al Shipley

Mixtape: N/A

Of the several August Alsina singles that have caught a buzz in the wake of his huge breakthrough hit "I Luv This Shit," this Mustard production has been the biggest and best, as well as the one that retains the ominous gangsta R&B air of "I Luv This Shit." The pre-chorus and chorus sections, featuring the song's dominant airy synth pad riff with a busier, squelchier synth line piled on top of it, provide a good example of how generously layered Mustard's productions are becoming. And Alsina's wide variety of cadences and melodies throughout the song, all locking into the beat, make a good case that he could be an R&B foil for Mustard as consistently as Ty Dolla $ign or Tee Flii. —Al Shipley

Mixtape: Doughboyz Cashout, We Run The City Vol. 4 (TBA)

Not to be confused with the similarly titled track with YG and Jeezy that's been a huge hit for the past few months, "My Young Niggaz" is a more recent CTE World posse cut with Doughboyz Cashout from November's It's Tha World 2 EP. But it also brings to mind some of the dark synth bangers Jeezy has rocked in the past like "I Love It," mixed with a muscular variation on the kind of snap music that ran Atlanta years the mid-2000's. And yet, back then, Jeezy wasn't rapping in the kind of busy, confident cadences back then that he does on "My Young Niggaz" and other Mustard productions, indicating the ways the producer has brought out a new energy in a rapper who's no longer Young. —Al Shipley

Mixtape: Young Jeezy, It's Tha World (2012)

Before his breakout success, DJ Mustard could've been considered simply one of the dozens of California producers working in the fertile sonic territory of the post-hyphy era. Most of those producers made their name working with E-40, but Mustard has only been peripherally part of that scene, working with 40 Water on a handful of songs, including a bonus track on 2012's The Block Brochure: Welcome To The Soil 3. Jeezy, who seemed to get a taste for those uptempo Cali bangers from appearing on E-40's hit "Function," reunited with the legend for one of the two memorable Mustard productions on 2012's It's Tha World mixtape, alongside the more famous "R.I.P." —Al Shipley

Mixtape: YG, Just Re'd Up 2 (2013)

While some of the best DJ Mustard beats come from how different they are than your idea of a "typical" Mustard beat, sometimes it's just a stripped-down, straightforward jam that does everything right. With a simple, tiny whistled melody, one of YG's best tracks relies on its strict adherence to the Mustard formula, drums uber alles. —David Drake

Mixtape: DJ Mustard, Ketchup (2013)

Just as spring doesn't start until the groundhog pokes his head above the earth on television as part of America's strangest public spectacle, summer doesn't truly begin until Dom Kennedy releases a song that feels like walking out of the supermarket into a 90-degree heat. Towards the end of July, Dom dropped a single titled "Never," which feels a little more like looking up at the clouds, which is cool. But "Nothin Like Me," from DJ Mustard's Ketchup solo mixtape, features woozy little guitar accents vaguely reminiscent of Biggie's "Sky's the Limit," which perfectly capture the hazy humidity of summertime in musical form. —David Drake

Album: YG, My Krazy Life (2014)

It says something about what a Drake co-sign means for an up-and-coming rapper like YG, or an up-and-coming producer like DJ Mustard, for their first Drizzy collaboration to be as feverishly anticipated as "Who Do You Love" was. When Drake previewed his verse during a DJ set last fall, the brief snippet that made it online had the internet going nuts, to the point that it almost seemed like YG was screwing with fans by continuing to keep a potentially huge song under wraps for a couple more months. When it finally did surface, the only person that was unhappy with the result seemed to be Rappin' 4-Tay, who was less than thrilled with Drake jacking his flow. —Al Shipley

Mixtape: DJ Mustard, Ketchup (2013)

This track from Ketchup is a rare DJ Mustard co-production, with longtime Wiz Khalifa associate Cardo, begins even more sparse than the usual ratchet track, with farts of synth bass and retro drum machine cowbells. And then, about 80 seconds in, an eerie pizzicato string riff pops up under Royce The Choice's hook, throwing the whole sound of the track off its axis. It almost feels anti-climactic when the track returns to the more minimal beat for the Skeme and Casey Veggies verses, but the sounds bizarre and unexpected every time. —Al Shipley

Mixtape: YG, Just Re'd Up (2011)

Mustard's trademark sound wasn't yet fully formed when he produced 2011's "I'm Good," one of the many singles YG lobbed out in the wake of the national chart success of "Toot It And Boot It." But the catchy track features the origin of the phrase that ended up becoming the famous drop that identifies every DJ Mustard track. After the song's final chorus, YG mumbles a few ad libs under his breath, before regaining his full voice to yell "Mustard on the beat, ho!" From there, Mustard sampled YG's voice and started stamping it on other songs. "I took it from that song and put it on one beat and was like 'Well this is catchy.' Then it happened to stick." Mustard told The Fader in 2012. —Al Shipley

Album: Ty Dolla $ign, Beach House EP (2014)

"Or Nah" is the second track in the past year, after Wale's radio smash "Bad," to recycle the squeaking bedsprings on Trillville's 2004 single "Some Cut." But aside from that little familiar loop, "Or Nah" has an odd texture and creeping, crawling tempo that instantly sets it apart from other Mustard productions. The drums never rise above muted fingersnaps, while the triplet hi-hats echo "My Nigga." One of the new tracks on Ty Dolla $ign's major label debut, the Beach House EP on Def Jam, "Or Nah" plays off a popular Twitter catchphrase and feels like a strong candidate to be Ty's follow-up to "Paranoid." —Al Shipley

Mixtape: N/A

That Cassie-esque (you remember her, right?) vocals are trendy as hell right now doesn't mean they aren't also kinda overdone as an affect. The deserved deification of Aaliyah has caused the number of atmospheric, withdrawn light-as-a-feather vocal stylists to multiply. It doesn't help that the producers who tend to push this stuff forget about how rhythmic Cassie and Aaliyah's beats were, focusing primarily on "vibe." But Mustard's low-key, taught-as-hell grooves help give a normally torpid style a powerful forward motion, while his soft-focus keys give the song an appropriately soft-focus mystique. —David Drake

Mixtape: Young Jeezy, It's Tha World (2012)

DJ Mustard's stark percussion and synth bells aren't explicitly retro, but there's certainly elements to his sound that can bring to mind the early drum machine era of the '80s. And that seemed to be where Jeezy's mind was going on the "R.I.P."'s first verse, namedropping old school legends like Slick Rick and Rakim. 2 Chainz, for his part, keeps things in the same era and quotes Ice Cube's verse on NWA's "Gangsta Gangsta." With Tity Boi's own "I'm Different" already giving Mustard the keys to Atlanta, "R.I.P." made him a staple, with Jeezy landing a hit off a mixtape almost as big as anything from his last album. —Al Shipley

Album: Kirko Bangz, Bigger Than Me (2014)

If any Mustard track deserved to be a hit off the beat alone and missed the mark, it's last year's "Shirt By Versace," which probably should have been given to someone who wasn't a couple years removed from his only hit like Kirko Bangz. Where Mustard tracks can sometimes sound cheap, slapped together or, well, ratchet, "Shirt" has four or five distinct synth lines that each sound like a million bucks. Alas, it was the bridesmaid of Versace-themed rap songs in the summer of Migos, no thanks to an unwelcome fourth verse by G Haze, who manages to make French Montana sound brilliant comparison. —Al Shipley

Mixtape: Young Jeezy, Doughboyz Cashout, and YG, Boss Yo Life Up Gang (2013)

In the beginning, the enormous runaway success of "My Nigga," as a viral sensation on Vine, seemed to have as little to do with DJ Mustard as any hit he's produced could have. But with the single riding that momentum onto radio ubiquity and platinum sales, the song represents the culmination of the movement that YG and Mustard have spent years building. And now that the whole song, and not just 6-second snippets of it, is everywhere, the beat is central to its appeal: slower than the average Mustard track, with enormous bass and triplet rhythmic accents ringing in the higher registers. —Al Shipley

Mixtape: Ty Dolla $ign, Beach House 2 (2013)

The test of any hip-hop super-producer's full potential may be in how well they can adopt their sound to R&B. Where Mustard's most frequent point of comparison, Lil Jon, stayed in the hip-hop lane for years before Usher blew the "crunk & B" door open, DJ Mustard has long kept singers Ty Dolla $ign and Tee Flii in his inner circle of frequent collaborators. But "Paranoid," the breakout hit from both Mustard's Ketchup tape and Ty's Beach House 2 tape, may be the song that truly mints ratchet & B as a commercial force, providing the template for Mustard to score singles for stars like Trey Songz and Jennifer Lopez. —Al Shipley

Album: Kid Ink, My Own Lane (2014)

The blankness of the default Mustard beat makes it ideal for the interplay of R&B and hip-hop—it's as easy to hear Jeezy shouting "R.I.P." as it is for Chris Brown to lay down a sugary chorus. The muscle of the groove provides a perfect counterpoint to R&B's lush, unclenched generosity of feeling. Kid Ink's "Show Me" has a lot working against it: it flips a pre-existing club classic (Robin S.'s 1993 house jam "Show Me Love"). The song's star is a somewhat blank template, a photocopy of a photocopy of the archetype Wiz Khalifa already embodies. And it features the perpetually annoying Chris Brown. That the song not only survives these drawbacks, but feels like one of the most vibrant pop-rap singles of the past few years is a tribute to the creative sparks that fly when Mustard's delayed bounce meets the smoother side of R&B. —David Drake

Mixtape: Tyga, Well Done 2 (2011)

The first time most of America heard "Mustard on the beat, ho!" as well as most likely the first time anybody cared about Tyga as an artist unto himself, not merely an accessory to a Lil Wayne or Chris Brown track. Even compared to other Mustard tracks, "Rack City" is starkly minimal, with that those 3 notes of bass groaning over and over under Tyga's raspiest monotone. But it was one of those moments, like the Ying Yang Twins' "Wait," where less was more, and something comprised mostly of low frequencies and low-impact drums could manage to kill clubs by sounding like nothing else out at the time. —Al Shipley

Album: 2 Chainz, Based on a T.R.U. Story (2012)

Capping off a 2012 full of collaborations, "I'm Different" was the first major hit by 2 Chainz with no famous guests, and remains his biggest solo effort. It was also the first DJ Mustard production to break big nationally after "Rack City," kicking off the run that's been uninterrupted ever since and establishing the unexpected chemistry between Mustard beats and Atlanta rappers. The sparse piano line on the hook is offset by a crazy synth riff on the verses, spurring Tity Boi to one of his strongest flows and reversing the usual dynamic of a track's energy rising on the chorus. —Al Shipley