Behind The Beat: Young Chop

It's been three and half years since Chief Keef dropped "Don't Like," produced by Young Chop. Although "Don't Like" remains the defining song of the Chicago drill scene, much has changed for Chop -- he has produced for dozens of artists, and he started his own label Chop Squad Records. Oh, and he raps.

During a recent weekend trip to New York City, Young Chop came by the HNHH office to discuss his career. He was accompanied by his parents -- his mom is part of his management team, and she dozed off on the couch in the other room during the interview. Chop, who turned 22 on November 14th, was his usual gregarious, humorous self, even when discussing the recent incident at A3C in which a security guard rushed Chop on stage after Chop said, "y'all bitch-ass security need to stop it." The security guard managed to pull out one of Chop's dreads before getting rushed and quickly walloped by Chop's crew.

"Motherfuckers running up on me for what though?" Chop told HNHH, gesticulating wildly. "Because I said you was a bitch? You is a bitch! Take that. You said some things to me, and I took that. You feel me. But he was mad I said it to the whole club. Celebrities, all them niggas, he was tryna show out. And you want to know what’s killing me? What make him think that he was just gonna run up on stage and swing on me, and not think my people were gonna do shit. And think I'm not with that, you feel me? I have a lot of street niggas with me. Don’t ever get that confused. Just because I’m not with that, don’t mean I don’t have that with me. That’s where I come from."

Young Chop was 12 years old when he started making beats. His older cousin, who lived about a mile away in the South Side of Chicago, showed up him the basics of Fruity Loops, downloaded the program onto Chop’s computer, and Chop was hooked.

Chop lived in a house with his brothers and cousins (his mother adopted five of her brother’s kids), but he still somehow managed to maintain a monopoly on the computer every day after school. “They couldn’t get on the computer,” he chuckled. “I was not letting them on that computer, I was on that motherfucker everyday. Like EVERYDAY. Fruity Loops, that was like my game. I don’t play video games. I sat there everyday on the computer, like ‘bro, I’m gonna learn this shit.’”

Chop’s production idols growing up were Pharrell, Drumma Boy, Zaytoven. Gucci Mane was in constant rotation. Chop used to post up in the lunchroom in high school, scouting out potential rappers to hop on his beats. Eventually he linked up with Chief Keef, Lil Durk, Lil JoJo, & Lil Reese, who attended the same school as him. Their studio sessions comprised of Chop hauling around his entire setup to various houses. He would bring his eMachine tower desktop, his monitor, his speakers, his mic stand, the whole nine yards. That was the nature of the hustle.

When Chop produced the “Don’t Like” beat at his house in early 2012, he didn’t immediately think it was fire. “It was like a regular beat to me, I didn’t think nothing of it,” he said.

Chop played the beat one day for Keef and Durk, and Keef heard something. “I pulled it up for Keef. He go: ‘Bro. this shit go crazy,’” said Chop. “He started writing to it instantly. And as he was writing, I was you know fixing that motherfucker up. Adding different shit to it to make it a song. And once he laid the vocals down, ‘snitch nigga, that’s that shit… ‘ I [still] didn’t think nothing of it."

At this point, Reese walked in the door. Chop urged him to spit a verse, and Reese obliged. Durk declined to hop on the beat. The song dropped alongside Keef’s Back From The Dead in March 2012. The video blew up immediately, garnering millions of views in a matter of weeks. Keef was 16 years old; Chop was 18.

Naturally, things started to pop off. It was less than a month before Chop signed his deal with Warner, and soon he was giving his beats to everyone from French Montana to Gucci Mane to Freddie Gibbs. He was out in LA pulling all-nighters with Big Sean, he was in Quad Studios in NYC with Travi$ Scott, who had just signed his own deal at the time. One of Chop's best known songs, Pusha T's "Blocka," was originally supposed to be a La Flame joint.

"I had given him that beat personally. I made the beat right there [in Quad Studios]," he explained. "He was like, MAN THIS SHIT HARD. THIS SHIT HARD. And then Travis had Pusha do the song. The beat was so fucking simple, you don’t even understand how quick and simple that beat was. It was the vibe. And then they put Popcaan on that. Shoutout to Popcaan."

In 2013, Chop founded Chop Squad Records, which is now strictly independent. He is now off his Warner Bros deal. He's spent the last two years setting up Chop Squad for the long haul. They run everything in-house. He employs two engineers, CD-Mix and Smitty Beats, and a master engineer named Ray. "I’m in the studio everyday, all day, all night," said Chop. "Constantly. And all my people in the studio every day and all night. They got over thousands of songs that people haven’t heard yet."

He has signed a whole roster of artists and producers, most notably Johnny May Cash and Chop Squad DJ, but he felt the burden of being an independent label when he was unable to match the offers extended to Lil Bibby and G Herbo by bigger labels. And despite the fact the he visibly brims with pride when talking about what he has built with Chop Squad Records, he seems eager to get back and collaborate with big name artists -- ones he has collaborated with in the past, like Pusha T, and ones that he hasn't met, like Jamie XX.

"They need to come fuck with me," he said, half-amused, half-annoyed. "I think people are intimidated by me because of my size and how I be looking. Bro, I’m the coolest nigga in the world. You could walk up to me and start talking to me, like I ain’t gonna do anything wrong just because you think I got dreads and all this shit. It just be confusing me how people be scared to talk to me."

Young Chop is, unquestionably, the most prominent producer in the Chicago drill scene. He is the artist who, more than anyone, has shaped the drill sound. Despite the influence of his beats, he considers himself a rapper just as much as he considers himself a producer. He rejects either label -- "I’m a music person," he said simply. Before his cousin ever showed him Fruity Loops, he was rapping, and his interest in rapping, long-dormant as he has produced his way to success, has re-emerged in the last year. There are a few reasons for this occurrence...

First, rapping stimulates a different artistic muscle than production. "I like rapping on sampled beats," he explained. "You know wanna know what it is, with sampled beats? They make you think more. They make you say real shit." Second, rapping allows him the best of both worlds - he can rap while also offering input and guidance on the production. Third, rapping is a means of promoting Chop Squad Records, by using his own popularity as a means to give shine to his producers as well as his rappers. Young J and Chop Squad DJ produced his recent single "Bruce Lee." Another recent single, "Around My Way," was produced by Young J and a childhood friend of Chop's named Fat Man. "I went to grammar school with him. I didn’t even know he made beats," Chop said, chuckling. "I was like, AND YOU MAKE BEATS!??? And he cold as hell. I’m just bringing these niggas coming together."

Ultimately, Chop is deeply tied to his Chicago roots. For all his success, his independent success comes with pride and insecurity -- two sides of the same coin. He has publicly, repeatedly, blasted Kanye for abandoning Chicago artists, and he appreciates when Chicago artists can overcome label-related BS and collaborate for the sake of collaboration, for the sake of civic pride. Here's what he said on "Around My Way:" "We was in the studio in Chicago, and Vic is downstairs. I’m like 'aye, jump on this.' He came up and just did the hook. He did that shit out of respect though. I love that shit though. That was some real nigga shit."

One of Chop's next tasks is to make a GLO-OTF joint album happen. Everyone is on board, the only remaining challenge is corralling Chief Keef. "It’s got to make sense to him and what he wants to do, because he a bigger artist," Chop explained. "But he’s the youngest one though, which is crazy to me. Yeah, he’s 20... He's the one that we gotta get on the right path because he just be in his own fucking world, man. But he’s a good person though."