The Samples on 'Vince Staples' Produced by Kenny Beats

Kenny Beats and Vince Staples have worked together since 2018, when Kenny shared production duties with Canadian producer Hagler for Vince’s third studio album, FM!. Judging from their renowned The Cave freestyle session ("I want something toxic with 808s, no heartbreak. Black on everything crime even animals"), there sure is clear chemistry between them.

Reaching five million monthly listeners with production credits alone, Kenny Beats rose from early 2010 Smoke DZA collaborations to an in-demand superproducer status. That's been validated throughout the years with production credits for ScHoolboy Q, Freddie Gibbs, JPEGMAFIA, Slowthai, full projects with the likes of Denzel Curry, Greedo & Rico Nasty—and now this new album with Vince Staples. But not only his production lists been growing steadily... The EDM-turned-rap producer is also one of the biggest influencers of the producer community with a loyal Youtube and Twitch following.

Kenny Beats is no stranger to flipping samples either, and has lately turned to Tracklib to dig out and clear samples. The first taste of which can be found on reggie's 'Ain't Gon Stop Me', where Kenny Beats utilized a classic 70s soul sample off Tracklib to (together with Monte Booker) create its bouncy core beat. The second taste can be found below...

On 'Taking Trips,' Kenny Beats headed deep into the soul category on Tracklib. Old and new: 'Taking Trips,' co-produced with Dreamville and Soulection affiliate Monte Booker (following their production collab for reggie), flips an early 70s Ru-Jac song from the catalog of blues, soul & reggae focused label Omnivore Recordings. Fun Fact: the track is actually an experimental instrumental B-side of Francine Long's original 'Days May Come, Days May Go'.

‘Sanata Theme’ by Bollywood icon Lata Mangeshkar, is an eerie sample to pick. The laughing snippet from 1981 Hindi horror movie Sanata works perfectly to set the tone as the intro to 'Lil Fade', and the theme is then sped up and chopped up to create the main instrumental of 'Lil Fade''s more fast-paced beat. The right fit to say the least, scoured from the vast Indian/Bollywood catalog of Royalty Network. And there's more where that came from, with Lata Mangeshkar being one of India's most beloved voices, and hence sampled for Britney Spears, Madlib (and Madvillain), Rakim, The Game, and many more.

The heartfelt exotica-tinged and violin-heavy 'Sad Day' by 70s multi-instrumentalist Guitar Red is another great find: sampled on 'Lakewood Mall,' a song previously dubbed 'Free Pac Slimm' to shout out a long-time friend, who Vince also mentioned on songs such as the DJ Dahi-produced track 'Prima Donna' featuring A$AP Rocky: “Me and Pac Slimm, we been shootin' since the Vans song / Pullin' any trigger that a n*gga got his hands on.” Another similarly-sounding song by Guitar Red was previously sampled by the 9th Wonder-produced “Power” by Rapsody featuring Kendrick Lamar, showing some sampling magic of Guitar Red’s synth. Which is also heavily featured on Guitar Red’s disco-laden “Fantasy.”