You’ve probably heard about Metro Boomin one way or another, whether its been from hearing his signature tag “if Young Metro don’t trust you they gon’ shoot you” on numerous hits or just seeing his name plastered all over a music chart somewhere. For the past couple of years, Metro has absolutely dominated the rap game, maintaining his presence on nearly every hip-hop top 100 chart there is with multiple songs on them at a time. Hes collaborated with nearly every rap giant of today’s time such as Future, Drake, Kanye West, Travis Scott, The Weeknd, Migos, 21 Savage, Young Thug, Big Sean… the list can go on for days.
Metros greatly known for his record producing, being recognized as one of the best beat makers to ever step into the music industry. In 2016 he got that in paper after winning “Producer of the Year” at the BET Hip Hop Awards after being credited for producing songs such as “Low Life”, “X”, and “Bad and Boujee”. After the production of numerous bangers such as “Where Ya At”, “Jumpman”, “3500” and many more he only excelled in his craft going on to produce whole albums for artists such as Drake & Future, 21 Savage, Big Sean, NAV, Offset, Gucci Mane, etc… with every project doing extremely well. Ever since then he maintained consistent, continuing to run the charts leading the way for producers.
This was until April of 2018, where he shocked the world with his announcement that he would be retiring from rap on his Instagram story, deleting all of his posts and changing his bio to “retired record producer’/DJ” in the process. For the next 7 months Metro would stay super low-key not releasing any songs, but instead being seen modeling for different magazine covers, leaving people wondering why he would leave while being at the top of his game, and if he would ever come back. Luckily for us, Metro can’t leave rap alone. The industry needs him.
Late October is when suspicious billboards would start popping up throughout Atlanta and New York reporting the producer missing, and that he was last seen in Toronto. This created a buzz throughout the music world speculating that new music was on the rise from Metro. After tweeting a series of pumpkin emoji’s on twitter a couple of days before Halloween, it was evident that the certified hit maker was going to be making his return with a bang. Halloween day is when his cover art would be posted through Instagram with nothing but fire emojis as his caption, but no one knew that yet. This left fans wondering what and if he would explain what the post was about. Then boom, hours later a track list filled with 13 songs and some of his most well known collaborators are released, featuring appearances from Travis Scott, 21 Savage, Drake, Young Thug, Kodak Black and more. The album was then officially released shortly after on all music streaming platforms. Metro even went as far as releasing a deluxe version of Not All Heroes Wear Capes on November 7, providing straight instrumental versions of each track.
With the release of the Boomin’s new project it brings no disappointments, reconnecting with close friends that possess similar trap sounds like 21 Savage, Travis Scott, Gucci Mane, Kodak Black, Drake and even Young Thug, also known as “Metro Thuggin” back in the day between the two. Metro bring fans the whole package including his signature sounds with dark synths and melodic keys supported with his clean head bobbing drums on songs such as “Don’t Come Out The House” and “Space Cadet”, but also changes it up with a different style we haven’t seen from the producer, bringing high quality dance/sing along tracks such as “Only You‘“ and “Dreamcatcher” with artists including Wizkid, J Balvin, Swae Lee and Offset to his catalogue. All in all the album is a great body of work from front to back bringing the fire beats and collaborations that the rap game is in need of.
What stands out about Leeland from the rest is simple, when he collaborates with an artist, people look forward to hearing the beat more then the actual vocalist over top of it. Its not that the musicians he works with aren’t pulling their weight, his instrumentals force them perform to the best of their ability. After the producer officially launched his own record label Boominati Worldwide back in June of last year, he’s stated that “launching Boominati Worldwide is the next step in my career as a producer, an artist and a business man.” He then explains “I created the label to represent a collective of highly gifted individuals who have a shared gift of being able to influence the world through culture and art.” So we have an idea of what to expect from Boomin in the upcoming months. There is one thing we do know for sure, expect a lot more heat in the moments to come with his long awaited return to the rap game.
