Last Friday—Good Friday—Young Thug released the third and final installment of his Slime Season mixtape series. For Thug the tape marks the end of a leak-filled era and "the birth of something new," he explained in a eulogy on his website.
Thug now keeps his ranks tight, so only a few really know what exactly "new" means here. One of these people is London on da Track, the producer behind exactly half of Slime Season 3 and past Thug hits (like "LifeStyle" and "Check"). Over the phone from Atlanta last Friday, he described Thugger's "something new" as being "ridiculously tremendous." And we'd believe it.
Below, London speaks on his contributions to Slime Season 3, what it's like working with Young Thug, and what to expect from Hy!£UN35.
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You produced four tracks on Slime Season 3: "Digits," "Memo," "Worth It," and "Tattoos." How did those four songs end up on the tape?
I did four tracks on there out of eight. There's a lot of tracks that me and Thug did. We wanted to give them that boom, that fire, so we gave them the club music. Those was one of the top three, four club music tracks that we have. The other ones that we have, we're gonna save for the album. The ones we got for [Hy!£UN35] are truly amazing.
So these are tracks from the vault, not new tracks made specifically for the tape?
All the tracks that are on there are two years old. I think we made "Digits," "Memo," and "Tattoos and Piercings" all in one day. We was high as hell and we was just turning up and making music like we always do and Thug pulled up. There was a lot of people there, it was me, Alex [Tumay], Duke was there, and his sisters Dora and Dolly where there.
That’s a productive day. What is your workflow like when you are working with Thug?
Me and Thug's chemistry is so good, it's immediate every time. I always make music in front of him—on the spot, from scratch. When I play a few melodies, he's like, "That's it right there, finish that." And I'll be like, "You sure?" And he'll be like, "That's the melody right there." So I lay down the melody, then I put two or three more sounds to it, and then I'll put it in ProTools and he just goes in and rips it from there. He does what he does, and then he's like, "Okay, I did my part, London, I want you to tweak it." So I finish it up. I'll make sure it's complete—this breakdown is for this part right here, this is for that section, the intro need to start like this. We just play around with it until we know it's a hit.
“The other [songs] that we have, we’re gonna save for the album. The ones we got for [Hy!£UN35] are truly amazing.”
"Digits" was dropped the day before the tape, how did that song come together?
When he was laying down, he was just freestyling it—just doing melodies in the booth—and I was like, “That's the shit right there.” Then he figured out the words and from there he just flowed the whole track. It was easy for him, he does it in one take. It's crazy how he can finish a song in ten minutes.
Did you have to make any adjustments or changes in order to bring these tracks up-to-date and release-ready?
It's crazy, cause I didn't touch not one of those songs—none of those songs changed. When you hear those sounds—the sirens, all that stuff—it's similar to that sound of music I made, like, when I made "Check" because it was made that long ago. I don't even use the sounds in those beats that I used to make no more, I got a whole new sound right now.
Does SS3 sound old to you?
To me, it sounds old. But to them, to the people, it's fresh. We make longevity music. If we do it five years ago, I think it'd still sound good right now.
How would you describe your new sound? What does Hy!£UN35 sound like?
My sound now is still bouncy, but it's kind of laid back. [Hy!£UN35] is more musical, you'll see the true producer of London. You'll see all the details, it's not a formula on the album music. Like, the stuff we have on SS3 is more formal: let's take it straight to the club, let's put it on the Hot 100. It's straight forward. The stuff we got for the album is not in the same formula. You can tell, London put his heart in here. It's not typical. The new [songs] we got are ridiculously tremendous.
