Rap fans are loving Metro Boomin’s new album Heroes & Villains, which dropped Friday and features appearances from Gunna, Future, 21 Savage, Young Thug, and the late Takeoff. In a new interview with GQ, Metro details the making of the album and also compares it to another hip-hop superproducer’s classic album, explaining how modeling his own project after the blueprint of Dr. Dre’s 2001 made all the difference to his creative process.
He even told his collaborators as much during the recording. “I told [Don Toliver], ‘Like 2001, you’ve got the Nate Dogg role,” he says. The late Nate Dogg was, of course, a melodic anchor throughout Dr. Dre’s 1999 comeback album, appearing on two of its smash singles, “The Next Episode” and “Xxplosive.” Likewise, Don Toliver, who has worked extensively with Metro since appearing on the scene in 2018, pops up on two tracks, “Too Many Nights,” with Future, and “Around Me,” a solo song around the midpoint of the album.
Elsewhere in the interview, Metro explains his responsibilities as a producer and posits which of those qualities sets him apart from his contemporaries. “I feel like as a producer, you’ve always got to be open and receptive, looking for what’s new and what’s next and up-and-coming on the ground vs. you being a producer coming on like, ‘Yo, I gotta make a beat for Drake,’” he says. “They’re gonna be who they’re gonna be regardless, so that don’t really prove nothing you’re doing as a producer. You can still make great songs with them, but as a producer, it’s like, what are you bringing? You’ve got to break artists, you’ve got to bring new artists. That’s a big part of your duty.”
Heroes & Villains is out now on Republic Records.