Iconic producer WLPWR talks the psychological skills of a music producer, Black artists in country music, and the death and the rebirth of hip hop
By Katharina Moser
It is Friday night in Music City, Tennessee, the dusk is falling on Nashville´s East Iris Studios, ice cubes are clacking in Whiskey glasses held in tattooed-up fingers, bejeweled with silver skull rings that reflect the studio lights in the eery dark of a front porch summer night. A distinct sequence of sound is dancing in the air, hums through the streets and rustles through the leaves of the blooming magnolia trees – a sound that makes your ears perk up and your feet tap, and it leads you straight into East Iris Studios, more precisely, in one particular room, where the doors are sealed and the mixing desk is glooming ominously in the half-dark. In its midst, there sits the origin of sound, casually testing out beats and drums, a man who can pride himself on being one of the most impactful, versatile and stylistically distinct hip hop producers of our time: WLPWR, founder of SupaHotBeats and BNDWTH, an industry icon who has worked with no other than household names like Eminem, Wiz Khalifa, or Killer Mike.
“I´m doing super good, making lots of music and getting to it”, says WLPWR a day later in the same studio, smiling widely. It has been a busy week for him, just days before the release of the album War Story by US rapper Yelawolf, who WLPWR has produced one significant half of the double album for. The producer, who is originally based in Atlanta, moved to Nashville three months ago and has added several Slumerican artists to his client base – and now Nashville can pride itself to be the new source and center of one of the most remarkable producing styles established in hip hop lately. “I´m best known for my drum selection, my cadences, and my 808s. I also have these quirky melodies that people recognize”, WLPWR says. “I´ve always mixed the gritty elements of hip hop and added melodies to it in a way that is non-conventional.”
As a producer who has been active in the industry for over 25 years, WLPWR has carefully honed his craft and carved out his own art space. “There are certain rhythm structures that are innate to me”, he ponders. “However, over the years, I´ve expanded as a producer. I´m more into live instrumentation now.” When WLPWR produced Yelawolf´s pivotal album Love Story in 2012, he got introduced to bringing live musicians into rap. “That transition just kept growing. I have made a point of adding people to my production who could make the sound bigger. Those frequencies of live instrumentation just lock in with people.”
It is this almost supersonic sensibility for how music feels, how it resonates with people, what energies it evokes, which reminds us that producing music is so much more than just pushing buttons and flipping switches – it means translating the inner world of the artist, their deepest thoughts and emotions, the landscape of their subconscious into palpable sounds and frequencies. What does it take, then, for a producer to work with an artist? “It´s always the vibe first. It´s really important to talk to an artist, get to know them.” Sometimes a producer has known an artist for years and has a deep connection and understanding for their ways of expression, like it is the case with WLPWR and Yelawolf. “But then I have artists that I meet for the first time and you just have an hour to get to know each other. In that case, we have good conversations and I just try to lock in with who they are and what they are into. I´m always interested in what they´re listening to and what makes them excited about music, and I find ways to take that as a starting point for where I think we should go musically.” To get a feeling for the emotional life of the artist, the producer has to tap into the energy they bring to the studio – whether it is excitement or heartbreak, joy or sadness. “That’s my job: To really pick up on energy and frequency from people. What are they really trying to say? My job is to convey that into the production.”
“It´s really important to be a good listener. And then I have to go to my mental library and figure out where the big song is in this. It needs to be the best version of itself.”
WLPWR
Today´s definition of a producer has reached a point where people think it´s just a programmer or a beat maker. That is one part of it. “But the other part is that you most definitely need to be able to communicate with people and pull out of an artist what is in them. You need to help them meet whatever goal or destination they want to head towards musically. You got to be able to transform into wherever the artist is mentally that day, whatever they want to convey.” That means, WLPWR makes clear, that there is a lot of musicality involved in the production process alone. “We have to be able make things make sense musically.” There is no such thing as “a sad song” – there are a million nuances to it, and the producer´s task is to channel them into the style of production.
That is no small responsibility – often enough, an artist only gets the hang of their lyrics after the producer has laid a beat and provided a basic structure to the song. Other times, the producer can pull forms of creativity out of an artist that they themselves did not even know existed. How do you do that – tickle out the best potential out of an artist? “I listen really well. As I´m producing, I´m also gathering information about the artist and their ideas. My job is to maximize the potential. Out of a basic song with a guitar melody, I need to create moments of growth and of climax”, WLPWR explains. “It´s really important to be a good listener. And then I have to go to my mental library and figure out where the big song is in this. It needs to be the best version of itself.”
WLPWR´s mental library, one could say, is not that of a typical rap producer – rather, it draws from manifold different music genres and styles. He has operated with rock and country elements and convincingly connected them with traditions of hip hop. “As a producer, I want to work in ways that are going to challenge me and make me do something that I wasn’t thinking about doing. I get excited when I´m given an opportunity to work with a rock or country artist. If you saw me in the streets, you probably wouldn’t think I´m a country record producer”, WLPWR grins. “I like to go in places that I´m not expected to be in, and I like to thrive in them.”
That perfectly encapsulates what WLPWR has been shaped by and come to embody throughout his life journey. “I´m a military brat. My dad was stationed in different places and we always had to move with him. I´ve been to all kinds of places in the southern region of the US”, the producer describes his upbringing. “That shaped me. I was introduced to so many cultures. I learned how to adapt to that. I have lots of friends from all kinds of corners of life.” That also shaped him musically. “I was never just listening to one type of music. I had white friends listening to rock music, Black friends listening to hip hop. Always moving helped me to learn how to reintroduce myself into news situations all the time. It helped me figure out to fit in where I fit in.”
“I took a strong liking to the creation of the music and the entire process of it. As a producer I have to see it from conception to fruition.”
WLPWR
His come-up as a successful hip hop producer may be a wondrous journey, but it directly speaks to WLPWR´s abilities to navigate rooms and art spaces, to genuinely connect with people, and to carve out and conquer his very own habitus and artistic presence. WLPWR´s career started out in a singing group, as he recounts with a smile. “I wanted to make it as a singer, didn’t make it, didn’t love it. But I fell in love with the process of making the music. I had a pretty strong producer at that time, and I didn’t even know that’s what he was when I met him. I didn’t understand the job at all. But I loved what he was doing, the position he was in to help us get what we wanted”, WLPWR says. “So I decided pretty early that this was what I wanted to do in music. And it quickly manifested.” He got out of high school, took off to New York, and that’s where he met Yelawolf. “From there, I have just always been this person to help create and service the song. I found my passion really early. I took a strong liking to the creation of the music and the entire process of it. As a producer I have to see it from conception to fruition. And I love it”, WLPWR says enthusiastically. “I´m behind the scenes, I´m out of the way. I have been in plenty of rooms where people have been going crazy over the music and they didn’t even know I made it. And that’s a great feeling because I´m over here just chilling and nobody knows what´s up.” He laughs heartily. “I appreciate it when people recognize the work I´ve been putting into a song, but I also understand that I´m a service provider. My goal is to do my part for the universe. I just want to help change people´s lives through my contributions. If I get noticed, fine, if not, I know that I did it and I´m happy that I did it”, WLPWR states lightly. “I do think, though, that as a producer I have carved out my own space. I´m very unique in what I do, and I´m finally starting to get the recognition.”
While fans and listeners like to forget the immense role producers can play in the creation of music, artists have long recognized WLPWR as a big player in hip hop, one that has helped shape and refine a genre. Eminem or Wiz Khalifa are only some of the household names the South Carolina-born producer has worked with. “It was all just a part of my journey. As exciting as it seems, for me it was a part of what God has laid out for me. I never thought that I´d be in a room with one of the biggest rap artists in the world, and make incredible music with him. Those blessings just come from the work that I´m doing. I keep my head down and end up in those spaces”, WLPWR says humbly. “This taught me about levels. When I was able to get in those rooms, and deliver and be respected, I realized that this was my initiation to becoming a great record producer who is of a certain status. That was awesome to me. If you love it, you´ll get where you need to go, and I see that for everyone that is dedicated to their craft.” But WLPWR also reminds us that this success did not just happen overnight. “It took years and years of hearing no till we got a yes. People told us our music was too weird. And the next thing you know, it is exactly what people want to hear.” According to him, an entire career starts out with one door, and the moment you walk through it, many others will open. “And as long as you´re willing to keep going, the doors are going to keep opening.”
Navigating multiple styles and sounds in his hip hop productions, WLPWR has contributed to build and define new southern rap. With many hip hop artists from the south of the US, most prominently Nashville´s own home player Jelly Roll, is there a new movement of hip hop originating in Nashville right now, and does WLPWR contribute to this? “Yeah, I think so. But I think I was rather part of its early origination. We did the Love Story album around 2012 down here. To me, that was the beginning of merging genres together from Nashville, connecting country and hip hop. Now it´s finally starting to grow and become a thing.”
“I love to see when genre walls are torn down and new creatives are able to enter. It doesn’t matter what color you are.”
WLPWR
As someone who always has an open ear to all that happens in the music industry, WLPWR has observed that Black artists have increasingly taken over country music lately – not least through Beyoncé and her surprising country album “Cowboy Carter”. “When we did Love Story, we were the first ones that I know of to take it seriously, to make a concerted effort to blend authentic country and authentic hip hop together. Me being a Black creative, a lot of my friends asked me what I´m doing… until we finished the album and they realized how good it was”, WLPWR recounts. “I always tell people it´s just music. I understand there is a history with country music and that people say it´s not for Black people. But it totally is. Because there is a lot of truth and a lot of emotion in that music. And hip hop is nothing but truth and emotion to me, too. People are just out there telling their stories. It’s a natural progression.”
Although country music has mostly – sometimes, rightfully so – been dubbed as a predominantly white, at times redneck-heavy genre that historically originated in white settler narratives and that speaks to an American heartland read as white, it has from its historic origins always been a genre shaped by African-American sound and styles. “Black people helped create country. We are not new to this. We just didn’t embrace it. But most definitely we have had influences in all of it”, WLPWR says. “I would have hoped to see more Black artists in it before now. But I think it´s great the way it is happening. Black country artists are being accepted and loved.” WLPWR is glad that he was open-minded enough to recognize this potential early. “Everybody is doing it now. But I have been there when it started. I love to see when genre walls are torn down and new creatives are able to enter. It doesn’t matter what color you are.”
“For a true artist, there is no such thing as cultural appropriation. Because we are all borrowing from different places. I hope I will see many more people doing what they are deemed not to do.”
WLPWR
In that sense, the Black takeover of country is not actually a takeover, but a reclamation of an old legacy, considering that country came into existence as a blend of white settler folk music and African American styles in the first place. “That’s why it shouldn’t be a conversation. It´s ridiculous for anybody to criticize. I understand the jarringness of Beyoncé coming into country. But I still appreciate it. Because there are only a few people who can change culture, and she is one of them. That move is probably bigger than most moves in her career”, WLPWR argues. “I´m just grateful that she was the one who did it. People say her album wasn’t that good. I don’t even think that was the point. The point was, she is doing country music so that y´all now we are here. And that we can also do country music.”
Within this debate, WLPWR does not think much of the idea of cultural appropriation. “For a true artist, there is no such thing as cultural appropriation. Because we are all borrowing from different places. I hate when people cancel some good art as cultural appropriation. There are no limitations to creativity, and I hope I will see many more people doing what they are deemed not to do.” For creatives like WLPWR, who see their only obligation in a full commitment to true art, the only boundaries should be of artistic nature. The whole point of art, in that sense, might lie in becoming something that people say you cannot be. “We can´t claim ownership on any of the genres in that way. I do think it´s important to respect cultures. Anybody coming into hip hop should always recognize the forefathers of hip hop. That it was Black music first. Those things matter. But to say that a person can´t do a certain type of music because of their skin color, that’s not a fair statement.” If everybody was just allowed to stay within their own, socially and culturally predetermined artistic realm, how would one ever come to an understanding of different living realities through art? WLPWR agrees. “I´m more against fake artists than I am against the race of the artist. You can be whatever color, if you´re a dope artist. But you get foolishness, and that’s uninvited to me. If you didn’t put in the work, if you´re not trying to become culturally relevant and don’t have a purpose – that’s who needs to go.”
Why, does WLPWR think, is a Black reclamation of the country genre happening now, of all times? He ponders for a moment. “I think it´s because hip hop is struggling right now. There is a huge change of the definition of hip hop happening. Younger people have their version of hip hop, and older people have theirs. I don’t think they are seeing eye to eye. That’s affecting the delivery of it, the reception of it. It´s just a big clusterfuck right now if you ask me”, WLPWR says and laughs. “There is too much hip hop now. So creatives will naturally go where they can be heard, and try to find spaces that are not overloaded. There are millions and millions of people doing hip hop. It´s cool, whatever. But like any other genre, if it becomes exponentially popular, it´s going to die at some point. Not necessarily completely, but it definitely fizzles out.”
That reminds one of rock´n´roll, an underdog genre that started out as a rebellion against cultural norms and became so popular that it turned into the mainstream it rebelled against – only to resurface much later. “That’s exactly what´s happening to hip hop. Rock music was really dope but there was this era where everybody put on make-up and had big hair. It was dead after that. And hip hop is in the hair era right now. Everybody is just flashy, it´s not real.” WLPWR thinks hip hop is right behind country music. “We got the resurgence of country now, and the songwriting in country music is amazing. It´s probably some of the top-tier songwriting right now.” According to WLPWR, artists as well as fans will naturally venture into these new artistic spaces. “But I don’t think hip hop is going nowhere, because so much art is influenced by hip hop that were going to start seeing hip hop making it into other genres.” In that sense, country rap should be understood not as country influencing hip hop, but hip hop merging into country. “If hip hop wants to persist, it needs to learn to do just that.”
“Hip hop is going to become other genres. That’s how it´s going to stay alive. That will be its new delivery, through other ways.”
wLPWR
That is exactly why WLPWR sees the future of hip hop, if it wants to survive as a genre instead of watering down or bleeding out, in experimental hip hop. “The most valuable hip hop right now is the experimental one which navigates all those influences. We are over the mainstream.” Does he worry that hip hop is just going to die out? “It´s cyclical to me. It´s going to have its ups and downs, and we are in a down. It is time for some change. We need new faces.” WLPWR is excited about what those news ideas might look like. “I´m going to dig in heavy into creating instrumental albums. That would be my contribution to keep hip hop alive. I´m not a purist saying we only need to have boom bap. I like experimenting and turning everything into hip hop, if we can. My answer now is that hip hop is going to become other genres. That’s how it´s going to stay alive. That will be its new delivery, through other ways.”
Despite a gloomy outlook on the genre, WLPWR, personally, is absolutely sure that he is not going to quit on hip hop anytime soon. “I have decided that I still want more out of hip hop.” The producer, with all the industry success he has accumulated, still has a few goals and dreams up his sleeve – one more point on his bucket list: to achieve a massive chart success, a top-40 song. “But I´m not willing to risk my integrity for this. I want to do it with a record that is my genuine version of a great record. People can feel it if it´s fake, if it´s forced, if it´s an industry plant. I want to produce music that always remains creative. And I hope that I continue to find that hunger for good hip hop in people.” Hip hop is a-changing, eras are coming to an end. “I´m ready for new sounds”, says WLPWR happily. And most certainly he is not only ready for that – but also a key to creating them.
The Wrapper 