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Producer Series: Boi-IDA

Thirty-six tracks from the Toronto producer who has been on more consequential rap records than almost anyone of his generation, without ever developing a house style.

Boi-1da, and the producer as chameleon

Matthew Samuels — Boi-1da — was born in Kingston, Jamaica and raised in Ajax, Ontario. He met Drake through an online beat-making forum, which is a very 2007 origin story, and became one of the defining producers of the following fifteen years.

What is unusual about him is the absence of a signature. Where most producers of his stature are identifiable within a few bars, Boi-1da's records sound like whatever the artist needed — the airy dancehall bounce of "Controlla," the grinding menace of "The Blacker The Berry," the sparse piano of "Real Friends." He is a producer in the older sense: someone who serves the song rather than stamping it.

He has won multiple Grammys and has an enormous number of platinum records, and remains largely invisible outside industry circles.

What to listen for

Kendrick Lamar's "The Blacker The Berry" is the most artistically significant thing here — one of the angriest records in modern rap, and a beat that refuses to give the listener anywhere comfortable to stand.

Rihanna and Drake's "Work" is the biggest, and one of the most important pop records of the 2010s: a dancehall-derived track that spent nine weeks at number one and did a great deal to bring Caribbean rhythm back to American radio.

"Controlla" works the same territory, and both reflect Boi-1da's own Jamaican background rather than a trend being chased.

The Drake catalogue runs deep here: "6PM In New York," "You & The 6," "The Resistance," and "Fireworks" with Alicia Keys — the last from Thank Me Later, and an early indication of the range.

Kanye West's "Real Friends" is the most emotionally direct, and The Game's "Jesus Piece" with Kanye and Common is the most maximal.

PARTYNEXTDOOR's "Only U," Chris Brown's "Back To Sleep" and Kehlani's "Get Like" show the R&B side.

Go deeper

Drake's Take Care and Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly are the two albums where his contributions matter most, and they could hardly be more different.

For the Toronto production world: Noah "40" Shebib, Nineteen85, T-Minus and WondaGurl — the last of whom was producing for Jay-Z at sixteen and came out of the same Ontario ecosystem.

And the general lesson: the producers with the longest careers are usually the ones without a signature sound to become dated.

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