When I finished this beat, I was like, because it’s so different than what was already
out, I was like, “This is not going to go anywhere.”
You have the beats that people want to hear, and you have the rare ones, the ones that
are pretty weird.
I wanted to just leave it on my computer or whatever, but I like putting stuff out that
are the special ones.
I think it's fire and when it's fire, I just want to put it out.
When I made the beat, I was in my attic in my parents’ house because that’s where
I used to live.
I was just making beats all day every day in the attic.
Before “Old Town Road,” I didn’t know Lil Nas X.
I had like a beats store.
That was my way of making money.
That’s how Lil Nas found it.
He was just searching for beats online.
I was on instagram and because my producer tag is in the song, he made a video himself
on his instagram.
He had like 2,000 followers and somebody I knew somehow find his page and saw that and
he was like, “Yo I hear your producer thing on this."
"Check it out.”
He told me, he was like looking for hours and he found this one and he was like
"Okay this is the one.”
And that’s the exact thing I think I said when I heard that sample.
I was like, “This is the one.”
I was a really small producer and he was a really small artist.
We were both supporting the song, promoting the song.
From there, we built a pretty good relationship.
And now we’re here.
When I made the beat, I didn’t even think about the whole country crossover thing.
I heard the…
I was just browsing on YouTube.
I think it was on the recommended.
I found a Nine Inch Nails sample.
That sounds cool but you know, you can't just loop that the whole song.
That’s kind of boring so I chopped up another part.
And then I made even a third chop ‘cause even those two get kind of repetitive.
I liked the sample so much.
I wanted to keep the original as much as possible.
There’s just small little changes in it.
Once I got these three parts, I started programming the drums.
So I started with a clap.
After the clap, I added the snares.
These snares, I made myself.
It’s like a couple snares combined and I just merged them.
After the snare, I added a hi-hat pattern and the hi-hat pattern sounds like this.
And to be honest, the hi-hats were kind of random.
I just like looked where I kind of needed slides.
The funny thing is, it’s kind of so over the place that I actually wanted to remove
the beat because I didn’t like the hi-hats.
But I just let it online and… you know, good thing I did.
After the hi-hats, I added an open hat.
Vocal chain.
Percussion.
It sounds like someone is scraping on a wooden plank or whatever.
The 808 pattern is pretty basic.
It’s not really something special but it sounds like this.
I made the 808 pattern so it fits the sample, not really looking at the other percussion.
For the second part of the hook, I always add a kick to my 808s, I layer the kick with
my 808 so it hits harder for the second part.
After finishing every beat, you have like the loud ass Kio tag in there.
Know that’s mine.
My life has changed crazy since “Old Town Road” because when I was like the school
kid that produced beats and just became better at it, my dream was to work with the big artists
I listen to myself.
I know it’s only because of this song.
This really made me live my dream, be a musician, successful
and work with all the artists I love.
People think my sound now is like country trap but that was a one time thing.
My sound is always evolving.
But I see a lot of people making Lil Nas beats.
YoungKio beats.
And they make just like, country guitar with some drums under it.