Inside The Metro-Verse: How Metro Boomin Went From Behind-The-Scenes Mastermind To Rap's Most In-Demand Producer
Metro Boomin isn’t your ordinary hero. Instead of scaling walls and flying over cityscapes, he possesses the rare ability to generate hits across a myriad of genres while remaining true to form. Like heroes in the Marvel and DC universes, the often withdrawn producer has played a not-so-quiet role in hip-hop for a decade.
For his superpowers, Metro has become one of the most in-demand sonic architects in the game. His collaborations with Future, Travis Scott, 21 Savage, Big Sean, and other big-name artists defied convention, turning Southern trap into high-performance art. Despite his reserved demeanor, Metro Boomin has been behind the board of more than 100 Billboard Hot 100 songs, including top 10 hits like the Migos’ "Bad and Boujee" and 21 Savage’s "Mr. Right Now" with Drake.
Metro spread his heroics even further last year. He produced standout tracks on Young Thug’s Business is Business ("Oh U Went), Lil Durk’s Almost Healed (War Bout It") and other major releases, while cranking out his own viral hits – "Am I Dreaming" featuring A$AP Rocky and Roisee and "Superhero" with Chris Brown and Future. His contributions led to his nomination for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical at the 2024 GRAMMYs, and showcased his versatility as an artist.
Thanks to Metro, and his unmistakable calling card — "If young Metro don’t trust you, I’m gon’ shoot you" — trap's appeal has grown outside of the rap community, influencing pop and R&B. And his string of hits with the likes of The Weeknd, James Blake and Solange further proves Metro's musical wizardry.
But on his second album, Heroes & Villains, which is nominated for Best Rap Album at the 66th GRAMMY Awards, the St. Louis native proves that he's as strong a solo act as he is an engineer of others' hits. Driven by lead single "Creepin’" featuring 21 Savage and The Weeknd, the 2022 album topped the Billboard 200 charts and became Metro’s third project to land at No. 1
It’s the second installment of an ongoing album trilogy, which follows 2018’s Not All Heroes Wear Capes.
Boasting features from John Legend, Future, Chris Brown, Travis Scott, Don Toliver, and Young Thug, Heroes & Villains is the second installment of an ongoing album trilogy, which follows 2018’s Not All Heroes Wear Capes.
According to Luminate, Heroes & Villains netted Metro his biggest opening week to date, with an estimated 185,000 equivalent albums sold in the U.S. "I didn’t see that coming," Metro told DJ Drama in January 2023. "A lot of times my stuff will grow slowly because I’ll put my time into it and people will realize, Oh, this is dope. I thought it was going to be one of those usual things … But it definitely caught me off guard."
In a recent renaissance of soundtrack projects, the multi-platinum producer also created the soundtrack to the animated blockbuster Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Metro flexed his versatility on the 13-song project, which combined sonorous trap beats, reggaeton and Afrobeat-inspired jams, and lush pop ballads.
Metro's success and recent GRAMMY nominations have been the result of years of Herculean feats. Never content to follow a single sonic thread, Metro has continually expanded his reach to other genres and mediums. He’s dabbled in film and TV, producing songs for the short-lived and The Weeknd-starring HBO series "The Idol," and embraced live orchestration both in song and performance. On songs like "On Time" with John Legend, the producer amplified the grandiose record with stringed instruments, then performed the song with a live orchestra at the Dolby Theater for the Red Bull Symphonic back in November 2023.
Despite his vast production credits, Metro says he’s been unfairly labeled a "trap producer." He’s conjured pop and R&B hits, too. "I love R&B music, I love making this, love making that," he told GQ in 2022. "Why would I wanna do something that I did?" Along with producing The Weeknd’s No. 1 song "Heartless," Metro laid his hands to tracks on James Blake’s Assume Form and Solange’s When I Get Home, then later produced Coldplay’s "Let Somebody Go" featuring Selena Gomez in 2019.
Metro’s venture into solo stardom shouldn’t be a surprise either; the 30-year-old producer told Billboard he wanted to be a rapper as a teenager. "In order to do that, I needed some beats, so I started to make my own beats." At age 13, Metro took notice of artists like Soulja Boy, who also made his own beats. "It was like … it’s possible."
Now, after years of playing the background, the man behind the blistering trap beats and rattling hi-hats is finally unmasked and fully embracing his solo artistry. There were flashes of his genre-bending genius on Not All Heroes Wear Capes, with the Offset, WizKid, and J Balvin-assisted "Only You" melding trap, Afrobeats, and reggaeton in euphoric form, but Across the Spider-Verse fully showcases Metro's musical dexterity both behind the board and in front of the mic.
On the film’s soundtrack, the roaring orchestral sounds of "Am I Dreaming" form a transcendent exchange between A$AP Rocky and eclectic vocalist Roisee. Songs like "Hummingbird" see Metro return to his trap roots, but James Blake’s harmonious croons breathe mists of pop magic into the track.
The hip-swaying "Silk & Cologne" and "Link Up" fuse reggaeton and Afrobeats, but "Nas Morales" is a complete step in unfamiliar territory for Metro. The unlikely collaboration between him and Nas closes out the 13-song project — Metro’s most experimental to date.
The album Heroes & Villains is more in line with Metro’s roots, with songs like "Superhero (Heroes & Villains)" and "Niagra Falls" highlighting the producer’s darker, more mystifying trap wizardry. He also, for the first time, conjured a rollout for the project.
Before the album’s release, Metro dropped a short film that featured cameos from Gunna, Young Thug, and actors LaKeith Stanfield and Morgan Freeman. The video, directed by Gibson Hazard, shows TV journalists (Gunna and Thug) reporting on a firetruck driver (Stanfield) setting flames to a city’s streets. Metro, overlooking the destruction alongside Morgan Freeman, decides to take action and stop the arsonist.
Last year was a big one for Metro, but the producer isn't driven by accolades. He wants fans to know that no amount of fame or hardware can take him away from his calling. "More than any accolades, sales, and everything, I just want people to know at the end that I cared the whole time. Every ounce of effort that I possibly could put into the art, I did," Metro told Complex.
With a new year in full swing, Metro has already hinted at a possible hat trick in 2024. While interacting with a fan on X, formerly known as Twitter, Metro wrote, "2023 was great but just watch what I do 2024!!!!!." The fan then asked how many albums to expect, with Metro responding, "3 at the very least."