New writer alert: Shout out Nick DeMasi, writing for Finals for the first time all the way from L.A.! You da man Nick, thanks for this interview with the Detroit producer Lulrose.

Maybe Lulrose has been on your radar for a while now because you are a soundcloud freak. Maybe Babyface Ray production credits or Surf Gang affiliation put you on. Maybe you heard him on the Sideshow album, an aoty contender. Or maybe you're unfamiliar which is OK. In any case, all the rappers with the best ears know Lulrose and now you will, too.

-Andrew

Nick DeMasi: You've worked a lot with Babyface Ray, who's obviously a legend in Detroit. What's your relationship with him like, and what has he meant to you during your career?

Lulrose: Ray helped me infiltrate the industry. That's one of the key times where a lot of people were able to hear my sound. Over the past 3 or 4 years, we just grew into building off each other in certain pockets. He has different fan bases; he has people that expect the more traditional Detroit stuff, and then he has a fan base that's similar to LUCKI's, and then a fan base that's more similar to Curren$y's. So I try to cater to all of that. That's my perspective when I'm making music with him. Sometimes I feel like he doesn't realize that.

Did he ask you for that, or did you go to him with it? It sounds like it was more the latter.

I think it also stems from the fact that I'm not that good at just making "Detroit beats." And I'm from Detroit. I started off making underground music. Then, as I got into high school and started hearing the Whitehouse tapes and the shit that Top$ide was producing, it inspired me to give it a try. The opportunity just presented itself, really, and I was like, "Well, I have to do something with it."

That was the number one thing that grabbed my attention about your music. You're a Detroit producer, and you definitely have a Detroit sound, but there are all these other influences in there that really expand upon it. What is your DNA as a producer? When you first started making beats, who were you emulating?

A lot of Chief Keef stuff. I like Isobeats; he produced a lot of Chief Keef shit. A lot of TrapMoneyBenny. The melodic Yung Gleesh shit. Zaytoven. D Rich. All the trap shit mixed with a lot of the early SoundCloud rap that was kind of melancholy, but still hard.

Were you a Clams Casino guy? Was it that type of early Soundcloud stuff?

I've heard Clams Casino in passing. He's good, but I listened to a lot of Yung Lean and shit too. Yung Lean was one of the first artists I found on SoundCloud. He's one of the first underground rappers I remember listening to and buying merch from. I was in like seventh or eighth grade at the time.

What era was that for him?

That was when he came up with "Hurt" and "Kyoto."

Oh, so very early still. He was just starting to accelerate.

Yeah, that's when he did the song with Travis Scott.

I feel like musicians hate doing this, but how would you describe your sound?

I don't know… melodic? It's complex. I would say I make trap beats; they're just coming from a place of how I feel on a daily basis. They're happy, sad, sometimes you can hear frustration. It just depends on the beat, you know? You can get glimpses of all those emotions in one beat.

When you were given that opportunity with Ray, how did you think about working in the Detroit stuff? What was your strategy?

I met him through a friend. I just pulled up to the studio. I'm the type to not say I make beats, so we just chilled a few times, and then one day he didn't have any beats, and I was like, "I make beats," and we went from there. He picked a couple, rapped on them, and they were just my style at first, but I added some Detroit drums and just built off making the songs. Ray makes a lot of music, so we'd make 2, 3, 4 songs at a time, and one of those songs would always be a standout. Every time we made more songs, they got better. The last two years, I feel like we've been making our best music.

How did you choose the guests for VOL. 3?

Just the first people I thought of, but also people I already had unreleased music with. I had a lot of songs that I could have used, but I just wanted to put the best songs that all had the same vibe together. It was simple; I didn't overthink it.

So you didn't go into the tape thinking, "Oh, I want to get a song with so-and-so," it was all stuff you had made with people prior?

Some of them. Originally, my mindset was to make a whole fresh tape and get everybody that I had in my mind on it, but it didn't work like that. I did piece some of the songs together. I had that Baby Face Ray song, and then we opened it up for Tony Shhnow. I DM'd Tony and was like, "I have a song with Ray that I think you'd sound good on." He sent it back almost ASAP. The song with Zelooperz is the most recent one that was made. I helped him record a song with his sister, and he was like, "I owe you, bro." I sent him some beats, and he sent me the song back in maybe March? My approach was chill, but in the future, I do want to work on a project where, top-to-bottom, everything is made from that point on.

What's the oldest track on there?

I think the Duwap Kaine song? That song's from high school. Me and Duwap made that on FaceTime, I believe. I was just making a beat and playing it through the speakers. He made the song and sent it back to me, but never dropped it. I always liked that song. I used to play it for my friends. I thought it would be cool to have on the tape because me and Duwap have history, and people specifically like that era of Duwap.

The beats go really well with the artists you have on them. Do you produce with specific people in mind?

Kinda. When I make beats, I can hear a handful of artists on those beats. Like the "Valet Mode" beat, I sent that to a few people. I sent it to Earl. I sent it to MIKE. I send my beats around, but just to the people I hear on them. Sometimes I'll send a beat to someone based on if they're prone to making songs fast, because I just want to hear somebody on it.

Do you feel like the song is complete when it has somebody on it? Is that why you want to get the fast turnaround?

Yeah. I feel like a lot of times my beats are missing something, and most of the time it is the vocals. That's literally the key sometimes.

That's something I wanted to ask about too. I noticed you don't sample a ton; you make most of the pieces for your beats from scratch. What inspires you as you produce? When you're in the mode of making a beat, what's pulling you along?

When I was younger, it was just something to do. I wasn't very outdoorsy, and it was just something to do. I knew I wanted to be a producer, and that I wanted to be somewhat successful at it, so I just grinded. But now I produce when I have the urge, or really feel motivated. Now I really work better in studio spaces. It's hard for me to make music at home. A lot of the beats on VOL. 3 I made at a studio or around friends. That puts a battery in my back.

What does the studio environment give you that you don't get when you're on your own?

Outside input. Just not thinking as hard. When other people are around, you tend not to care as much. When I'm by myself, I overthink everything or get frustrated.

That's interesting that for you, the outside influence, instead of adding pressure, makes it easier to try stuff.

And collaboration is super fun. That ties back to not thinking as hard. I'll start something, or work on something that someone else is doing, and then walk away from it so they can work on it again. The turnout will be whatever we come up with instead of me having to be definite and final about it. The outside input makes everything a lot easier.

Going back to VOL. 3, you sound more confident as a producer on it. The beats are bolder and more expressive than the ones on the earlier tapes. What would you attribute that growth in confidence to over the last couple of years?

Maybe the reception of the other two tapes? And just progressing as an artist. And the music I've been listening to. I'm not gonna say I tried to cater to the Detroit sound on the first two, but I just wanted to show that I can touch all bases with this one. You get everything with this one, a song for everybody.

It definitely has that appeal to it. Why did you start the ROSE series to begin with?

It's just a very producer thing to do, drop a compilation album. And there's a shortage of cool ones. I wanted to put my spin on it; it was just a matter of having the songs. That's the hard part: producers don't really get songs back anymore, so I just had to work with what I had. That's really all I'm doing is working with what I have. I want to pull off a crazy tape with crazy features and a budget. There are artists I would love to work with who just aren't accessible right now. Like I wanna work with ILoveMakonnen. If I could do a tape or EP with him, I would do that, because I'm curious about what it would sound like. Even Teezo, I would love to work with Teezo Touchdown. It's about connecting dots and stuff like that.

Is Makonnen a big inspo?

Oh, definitely. His voice is just so unique. It's kind of rough around the edges, but it's beautiful. That's the type of stuff that scratches my brain more than things that are clean-cut. Even the beats he raps on, they're sad, happy, weird.

He's also very emotion-forward in his music. Do you have any favorite producer comps?

I like DJ Mustard's Perfect 10. That album is a perfect producer album. I get that it's super industry, but it's good music. That's why it sold so many records. Cardo's is very good too. It doesn't have the biggest artists on it, just ones that he really fucks with. And sonically, it's well put together.

I gotta tap in with that. I remember him talking about it in an interview a couple years back, but didn't know it had come out. Is Cardo also an influence?

Definitely. He gets the swag aspect of being a producer. He's fun; he doesn't give a fuck. What I learned from Cardo is that it's okay to have repetition. I used to feel like everything was repetitive, but he makes the repetitiveness sound clean. A lot of times, you don't notice it because the artists he has on his beats rap in pockets. They're rapping between the cowbells and the open hat. There's a lot of ways you can rap on those beats.

Is there a trick to that? Making repetition sound not repetitive? Or is it just a matter of waiting for the artist to complete the song?

It's the artist's job to complete it, but it also comes down to sound selection and where things are repeating. You can have sounds repeat on-grid, or you can have them loose and on the offs. The way Cardo does the cowbells, they're repetitive, but they might be towards the end of the 8-bar loop. They're gonna hit at the same spot every time, but it's just this specific area, and it adds a bounce. It's a less-is-more thing. It's simple, but hard knocking.

What do you normally start with when you're making a beat? Do you start with sound selection, or do you start with the drums?

I either start with the melody or, if I have a loop, I start with the loop. I always do the drums last. The drums are more important than the melody, but the melody has to be just as contagious. So I'm trying to find whatever's interesting and build off that. Recently, I've been working with loops a lot more than when I first started, just from trying to push out more beats and get more songs with people. The industry kind of forces you to use loops. I don't mind it, though, it's just one of those things I noticed. I make fewer beats from scratch, but I'm just as capable. I have fun doing both.

Why are the drums more important than the melody?

Because that's what people are dancing to. The drums are what keep people coming back. In hip-hop, there are only so many drum combinations you can do before it sounds like something you've heard before. Drums create familiarity. They're why people like certain songs, and why some songs do better than others.

So through the drums, you're speaking to a larger history in a way. Are there any producers that you look to explicitly for drums?

Yeah, I fuck with Cardo. Chief Keef. Keef is an amazing producer; he's one of my favorites, and he's very good at drums. He's very intentional with them because he's rapping on his beats most of the time, so he knows his pockets. BrentRambo is also amazing with drums. He's pushing the envelope on them; that's his thing. I overly respect him for that.

Have you gotten a chance to work with him?

Yeah, we actually produced a song together on LUCKI's new album. The song with Lil Baby.

Oh cool. That's obviously a pretty big placement. How did it come about?

I went to LA in February. I was very conflicted about going because my grandma was sick, but she told me to go, and I ended up having a really good trip. I'm cool with LUCKI, so I knew I was probably gonna go to the studio, but the album was already done, so I didn't have high expectations of being on it. There was one specific week where LUCKI felt like rapping. He heard a beat through my headphones, and he was like, "Send me that." So I sent him the beat, and it took him a few days to record that song. Then he went to the studio with Yachty a few days later and rapped on two of my beats there. Then, a few more days later, it was my birthday, March 23rd. I was just chilling at the studio, and LUCKI was like, "Lil Baby's pulling up, he might want some beats." I took a nap, and when I woke up, Lil Baby was walking into the studio. I walked in the room to say what's up, and then LUCKI was like, "Play some beats, Rose." So I grabbed my computer and handed it to Lil Baby with untitled open and was like, "Click through these." He clicked like the 3rd or 4th beat, and they made the song that replaced the Lil Baby song that was already on the album.

Oh, damn.

It was random. Super random.

That happened on your birthday?

Yeah. You know how guys are about their birthdays. I didn't even tell nobody, I just went to the studio. I was there all day.

That's some alignment shit, between your birthday and your grandmother telling you to go. Was she a big supporter of you musically?

Yeah. She wasn't that hard on me about anything. She wasn't the type to be like, "Go get a job." She knew I was doing something. Once she started seeing me really take care of myself, she dropped the whole "you need to work" stuff. She also worked at a strip club; she was a house mom. Over the years, people that I went to school with started working there, and they were telling her, "Your grandson actually makes music that people play in the bar."

That's nice that she allowed you the space to invest in music and explore it. Were you a musical kid? Did you play a lot of instruments or anything?

I didn't play any instruments, but I always liked music. Beats always stood out to me. I definitely listened to instrumentals a lot. If there was a song I liked back in the day, I would listen to the beat or go on YouTube and listen to the instrumental. My dad was the type to freestyle and listen to instrumentals in the car. That was just his vibe. I feel like that played into me liking beats too.

It's funny how those early memories in the car with your parents really stick with you.

My dad has very interesting music taste too; he's the one who put me onto Lil B. One day, he was asking if I'd heard "Fuck Kevin Durant," then he showed me Lil B getting knocked out on World Star Hip Hop. He listens to everything. Me and him will listen to Makonnen together, LUCKI, whatever. He was just listening to Fat Smaxk's album on his own. I'm not putting him hip to this shit; he's just super tapped in.

Is he familiar with your music?

Yeah, he'll listen to shit I've made on repeat. Or he'll just be on YouTube, and the algorithm will play some shit, and I'll be like, "Oh, I made this beat."

You also had a placement on the Sideshow project, which is probably my favorite album of the year so far. How did you get connected to the 10k crew?

It really just ties back to the internet. Me and Niontay followed each other for a long time. I didn't know he made music for a while. I thought he just modeled and skated. Then I started listening to his music and showed love. We just got cool. Then I pulled up to a MIKE show in Detroit, and met MIKE and El Cousteau. With Sideshow, I was just listening to his music and posting it. Then I went out to LA, and we linked and spent a whole day together. I was with my boy AYOCHILLMAN, and we made the song that day.

What are you looking forward to? What's next on the list of goals?

Really just doing more projects. I've been kind of chilling since my grandma passed, but now I just want to get back to work because that's what keeps me going. So yeah, just work with my friends, slide some big projects and big names in there. I just want to blossom into what I feel like I should be. Whatever comes my way, really. It's not even about working with specific people; it's just about working with people who are good at what they do.

Do you learn a lot when you do that?

Yeah. It's a mutual thing. You feed off of each other, and both benefit in a way. They learn something, I learn something, and then the outcome is a song that people like. It's a win-win.