The drought of music from the A$AP Mob family came to end recently when A$AP Rocky put out a new single "Multiply." With the visual treatment for the song, we were granted a sneak peek at what is presumably his next single, "Pretty Flacko 2." Given how much of a banger the first "Pretty Flacko" was, anticipation began to build immediately, and grew exponentially when Rocky performed the single live in London, with footage of the performance making its way online. At the same time, production duo Nez & Rio began receiving a sizeable amount of buzz, because they were behind the thunderous beat. The funny thing is, Nez & Rio have been responsible for some of your favorite tracks, although they remained much more behind-the-scenes at the time. Two of ScHoolboy Q's fan-favorite records, "Man of the Year" as well as "Druggys Wit Hoes Again" were produced by these Chicago natives. Yet, you would hardly associate their name with those tracks as instantly as you would, say, with a Boi-1da-produced cut. Soon enough though, we can guarantee that Nez & Rio's name will hold a similar kind of weight as the name Boi-1da, meaning, they will be able to carry a track with their names alone, artists in their own right. They will be the kind of producers you are extra careful to make mention of when discussing a track, simply because, well, it's Nez & Rio. They already have a strong repertoire of underrated tracks under the belt, so it's only a matter of time before they bubble to surface. Now is the perfect time to start familiarizing yourself with them, so we hit them up to get the scoop on that "Pretty Flacko 2" as well as what else they've been doing.
HotNewHipHop: First, can you tell the HNHH users a little bit about who you guys are? How’d you two first meet and why did you decide to form a production duo?
Nez & Rio: We went to grade school, high school and college together. When we were in college at Howard , we were hanging out just making beats on some cool shit and the shit was dope so we started making beats together.
HNHH: Do you do a lot of production for the rappers within the Treated Crew?
Nez & Rio: Not so much recently since we moved to L.A. two years ago.
HNHH: What’s the crew dynamic like?
Nez & Rio: It’s a bunch of the homies that we’ve known since high school and in our early 20’s.
HNHH: Is Treated Crew a focus right now or are you guys more focused on placing beats with artists outside of the crew?
Nez & Rio: Those are old friends so we’ll always be open to creating music with them but since we've been in L.A. the last two years we've really focused on getting major label placements.
HNHH: You guys actually produced two of my favorite tracks off ScHoolboy’s Habits & Contradictions ["Druggys wit Hoes" & "niggaHs.already.know.davers.flow"]. Have you worked with other members of TDE since then?
Nez & Rio: Thank you. Yeah. We work with everybody on TDE, only on a small portion of that music has been released.
HNHH: Do you consider yourselves underrated? I feel like you guys have done some significant production that’s not common knowledge, whereas, everyone knows when someone like DJ Mustard produces a song.
Nez & Rio: The cream always rises to the top.
HNHH: Obviously it has spread across the net that you guys produced “Pretty Flacko 2.” Is this the most buzz/most excitement you’ve had around a song you’ve produced?
Nez & Rio: I definitely think so.
HNHH: How did you guys get in touch with A$AP Rocky? Did you guys have a studio session together or was it done via email?
Nez & Rio: We met Rocky through ScHoolboy Q during the ASAP Mob tour stop in Chicago. Us, Rocky, Danny Brown were chopping up on the back of the tour bus and that was the first time we met Rocky. We ran into Rocky again at SXSW and swapped info and started sending him beats. After he recorded "Pretty Flacko 2" we went in and mixed the song.
HNHH: Do you have other tracks in the bank with Rocky too? Can you speak on what anything sounds like if so?
Nez & Rio: Yeah. All those shits are hot as fuck too.
HNHH: Can you tell us how the “Pretty Flacko 2” instrumental came together? What was going on when you guys made the beat?
Nez & Rio: We were chillin' out before we were going to a party and the beat just came out when we were pre-gaming.
HNHH: Was it Rocky’s intention off the bat to make it a sequel to “Pretty Flacko,” like did the original SpaceGhostPurp beat influence the beat you guys made at all?
Nez & Rio: We believe so, but [the] SpaceGhostPurp beat didn’t influence us to make that track.
HNHH: Did it go through any significant changes after Rocky heard it?
Nez & Rio: We added some things post-vocals. We added an outro and bridge.
HNHH: What’s your favorite beat you’ve ever produced?
Nez & Rio: It would have to "Pretty Flacko 2" right now. It changes every time we make some new slam
HNHH: Do you have any other collaborations coming up you guys are excited about?
Nez & Rio: We’ve been in the studio with Travis Scott. If those records come out it will be very exciting. We’ve also been working with Candice from Compound Entertainment and that has been very exciting too.
HNHH: What’s the plan for the coming year?
Nez & Rio: Introduce our artist side to the world. We are bringing something different, progressive and just some slam. Also, continue to work with established and up and coming artists as well.
HNHH: Anything else we missed you’d like users to know?
Nez & Rio: Just look out for our new music. It’s coming and its slam