Metro Boomin

There's always something in Atlanta that's so far from people's comfort zone.

The main thing about being a producer and not a beatmaker, the difference is the ear.

I like my name. If somebody wants to call me Leland, that's cool.

My name is Leland Tyler Wayne. My mom wanted to give me a name where, no matter what I wanted to do, I'd be able to do it. An astronaut. President. Whatever.

Pac was real, and he put everything into that music with the passion, creativity, and the drive, and I feel like it's all one in the same with myself.

You hear what Thug says in his songs - the musical level of it is so crazy that it doesn't register with some people, so they call it trash. But anybody who loves music can appreciate what he's doing.

One of the things I love about music and making beats is making something and watching someone's reaction, knowing you can do something to manipulate the way people move or act.

I'm real big on making sure everything is right and taking my time.

Coming up, a lot of people I looked up to had a signature sound, but I came up, and I was always in search of one, trying to find it, trying to create one. I was never really able to have a creative signature sound, you know?

When Thug hears a song, he knows how the whole shape of the thing goes. He can nudge the whole frame to the left to make it offbeat and sound how he wants it to sound.

When I started making beats in the 7th grade - even through middle school and high school - I admired a lot of Shawty Redd, stuff like that, that real dark, trap sound.

Really, I just sit down, mess around, and play with sounds.