Behind The Beat: Brandon Thomas

Our latest guest on Behind The Beat is Atlanta's Brandon Thomas, who just celebrated his 20th birthday. You may know him as the name behind the instantly recognizable "U Guessed It" beat. "U Guessed It" first appeared on Give Em Hell, a joint EP between OG Maco and Key!, and then Maco replaced Key! with 2 Chainz for the single release. The creepily simple piano melody has since been freestyled over by everyone from Lil Wayne to Big Sean. There's an interesting story behind the song that put OGG on the map. OG Maco has been quoted saying he slapped Brandon and forced him to give up the beat. Brandon's here to clear that up.

Brandon's creds run way deeper than "U Guessed It", though. He's done a number of other tracks with Maco and Key!, and he's produced for Trinidad James, Michael Christmas, and ManManSavage. On his birthday, he dropped the third installation of his Good Things Take Time mixtape series. You won't find a producer with a more diverse set of influences. Though many of his beats have stayed local, his dreams extend way beyond Atlanta.

I sat down with Brandon right before the release of Good Things Take Time Vol. 3. Brandon stopped by in the midst of a busy studio schedule, exhausted and weakened by his first NYC cold, though still buzzing from the fact that people are starting to get excited about his music. Brandon speaks about music in the abstract, and he rarely thinks about hip-hop, or any genre for that matter, while he's making a track. Though he's still trying to articulate his most inspired visions, it's rare to see such a young producer--in such a competitive game--so driven by innovation.

BT: It's a pleasure, man. 

HNHH: What have you been up to in NYC?

BT: I been out here working, bro. Working a lot at this studio called Black Wax. I've been doing a lot of, like, soundscaping and different production vibes--and infusing those textures with the texture of the time, which happens to be the trap texture. 

HNHH: Are you working with other artists? Or are you trying to work all these sounds together for your own music?

BT: I been working with other artists too. You never know what you're gonna get when you have a session with BT. It comes straight from left-field. 

HNHH: Let's talk about the beat you've gotten the most recognition for--"U Guessed It". There have been a few different accounts on how that song was made. What's the story behind the track and how has it affected your career?

BT: We're all artists, and we're in competition, but we're like brothers. There's emotions, feelings, and animosity involved, and the story gets away from what it really was. Like Maco said he slapped me or whatever--that never happened, bro.

Me and Maco lived together for like two years. It was me, Maco, Brylan, and Bluetooth, and we were the original founders of OGG. And I feel like once more people got involved that weren't--not that it's a bad thing--but that weren't in the original four started making decisions that only the founders should be able to make, that's when shit started to change up, and there started to be animosity and shit. 

The real story is we were planning on doing the Give Em Hell project and he was like, "Bro, I'm finna go out of town and fuck my bitch. Stay home, bro, make beats all day." And I was like, "Nah, what the fuck?" And he's like, "Bro, you better have 10 beats when I get back."

So he gets back. Sure enough, I have four beats, and I'm like, "Look, bro, you get your four fye beats, or like 10 ass beats. I'm not finna sit here and cook up 10 for you. You knew I wasn't gonna have 'em done." And he's mad as fuck--he had just came from Hooters, so he was all drunk and shit. And I was like, "You know what? You can't even hear the beat, bro. You gotta freestyle to it before you hear it." 

And he was like, "Play that shit," and I was like "No," so he grabbed the headphones from me, and I guess that's where he was like, "Yo, I smacked this nigga." But he never slapped me. He grabbed the headphones, and I was like, "Here, bro. Do your thing. One take." And he just spazzed on that shit. Like he did the, "Woo, we was right," and we just knew at that moment. 

He looked at me and was like, "Yeah, nigga. I told you." And I was like, "Yeah, turn up nigga."

HNHH: So "U Guessed It" was just one take?

BT: One take bro. Like the chicken grease still in it and all. We couldn't even re-do the take 'cuz that shit was so real.

HNHH: Do you think some producers spend too much time mastering and polishing their records in the studio?

BT: For 2014--for hip-hop, out of all the records that dropped--I feel like 80% of them shits were trash, 20% fye. And the records that were fye were the sloppiest ones. That's the crazy part about it. And that goes to show that producers nowadays are worried about what people are gonna think.  

The new thing is no rules. There’s no rules to making music. I was an artist first, then I started engineering, then I started producing. So, when I make a beat, man, I’ll just try to find the melodies on the keyboard and just play ‘em by ear. I try to give the record space to where you can hear the artist on top of it--rather than something that’s overproduced that doesn’t give any space for the artist.

HNHH: What is it about Atlanta that makes the city produce some of the weirdest mainstream music out there?

BT: I know a lot about old Atlanta music, especially 'cuz my pops was part of that whole Freaknik scene. You had Organized Noize, Dungeon Family, OutKast, and shit. The South was like booming, man. You could turn up to all those records, but they had their own individuality.

And I feel like it's getting back to that. 'Cuz those records were a lot of do-it-yourself records. And this whole wave that came in 2014, man--we're doin' it ourselves. Like I made that ["U Guessed It"] beat in ten minutes. Straight from scratch.

HNHH: You had records that were hot in Atlanta before "U Guessed It", right? 

BT: Yeah, man, we had "Road Running". That shit was goin' crazy in the city. That's like the first trap beat I made. 

HNHH: What's the difference between a beat that's hot in Atlanta versus one that makes it nationwide?

BT: It's all about the sauce in Atlanta. They might not understand it, 'cuz it might sound sloppy. That's what makes an Atlanta hit--havin' all the fuckin' sauce on it--saying as much as you can without saying anything. 

HNHH: Thanks for the time Brandon. What should we look out for in the near future?

BT: Good Things Take Time Vol. 3. A lot of homies have been fuckin' with those tapes heavily, so it's only right I gave them a Volume 3. The Volume 3 is more like the indie rock, house-y other shit I've been working on besides the trap sauce. Go cop that shit.