By a show of hands, it's likely that Hit-Boy would be unanimously voted as one of 2020s reigning production MVPs. Having produced Nas' return to form with King's Disease and a few choice cuts on Big Sean's Detroit 2, it feels like Hit-Boy's sound has come to define part of the year's sonic landscape. And with another full album with Benny The Butcher on the way, that repertoire is only set to expand. Today, Hit slid through Apple Music to chop it up with Ebro Darden, and together they touched base on some of his noteworthy moves.
Benny The Butcher Album & More">Amy Sussman/Getty Images
When asked about the anticipated Benny album, Hit-Boy keeps it brief but tantalizing all the same. “I did the whole album," he reveals. "I got a couple of co-producers, just some homies I be cooking beats with, but I did every beat on the album.” He does, however, open up further on the recent situation with Kanye, which found him stepping up to speak his piece on the matter. "I don’t know what the real issue is," he admits. "That’s honestly just the surface, man, we done had so many back and forths, but at the end of the day I just respect him so highly on the music side that I’m gonna always have a certain respect for him."
He also spoke about how he and Nas ended up connecting to begin work on King's Disease. "One of my homeboys was doing some business with Nas, I was like, man you better bring him through," he reflects. "He brought him through the next day just to hear beats, and everything I was playing he was responding to. We recorded the first day, he came back. By the third session he was like, ‘Nah, bro, this feels like something different. We got to make this a whole thing.’"
For more from Hit Boy, check out his full appearance on Ebro Darden's Rap Life Radio below.