Lil Uzi Vert is one of the rap world's biggest young stars, reaching another level of fame on the strength of his single "XO Tour Llif3." However, despite the fact that he's a well-known figure in the industry, precious little has actually been made public about his recording process - that is, until now.
Uzi's longtime engineer, Kesha Lee, spilled some of those secrets to U.K. publication Sound on Sound, which is a recording technology magazine. Lee was responsible for all of the engineering that went into the rapper's mixtapes and EPs since 2015, in addition to mixing four songs off his massively popular debut album, Luv Is Rage 2. The process is, to say the least, probably not what most people would be expecting from a hitmaker like Uzi.
Lee explained how he goes about acquiring the beats that he likes. "People either e-mail Uzi beats and he forwards them to me, or I will reach out and say, 'Hey, we are in the studio can you send some beats?,'" she said. "I will pull up the beats, and often he wants to hear everything before he picks something. He doesn't really like to listen to each beat in much detail before he goes in the booth. He just goes in and records. He doesn't do like a whole verse. Instead he'll do things line-by-line and I'll be punching in." That methodical approach takes place among a sea of people that Lee says follows him into the studio.
"Uzi will have all his friends in the studio, but just three of us work on the music," she continued. "Cannon makes the beats, or he will play more of an executive role, where he gets beats from other people. Uzi does his own thing." Part of the chemistry between Lee and Lil Uzi Vert is how she enables him to create on the fly without much of a hassle. "I will even let him do his own drops where you only hear him and there's no music playing," she added. "I will put the track on latch automation, and I will let him press the mute button so he can do his drops when he wants them, and then when he clicks the mute again, the track will come back in."
Lee's reaction to even being featured in the publication at all was one of elation. Check out her Instagram reaction to the piece below.
