Hip-hop and alternative music website Okayplayer recently connected with South Carolina’s Supah Mario, the producer behind “What’s Next” by Drake.
The song, co-produced by Supah Mario with support from Rexdale’s own Maneesh, was featured as the intro tune on Drake’s three-track project, Scary Hours 2, which came out March 5. The Theo Skudra-powered “What’s Next” video dropped the same time as the EP, and has already been viewed more than 13.4 million times. Supah Mario has already a few Drake credits on his discography including “Ice Melts” off More Life, and “Blue Tint,” off the Grammy-nominated Scorpion. He’s also got several other huge placements including tracks with Lil Uzi Vert, Young Thug, Megan Thee Stallion, and Tory Lanez, among others.
Supah Mario provided Okaplayer with a breakdown of how “What’s Next” came to be, how the beat got to Drake, the song leaking early, and more.
On sending the “What’s Next” beat to Drake…
“I sent beats straight to his phone. I used to send them to the email but once I got connected, I started sending shit to his phone.”
On how Drake picks the beats he receives…
“Every time I send a beat, I send that shit to him first and he’ll pick. He’ll say, ‘this, this and this,’ or he’ll mark the ones he fucks with. He’ll use the exclamation points on the text message, then the rest get sent wherever. That’s a real down-to-earth dude, way more down-to-earth than I would’ve ever expected.”
On collaborating with Toronto producer Maneesh…
“If you listen close, he did those sounds that’s in the background. He did the chants, he added some sprinkles over it. I don’t know what to really call it, so I’ma call it the sprinkles. Maneesh has worked with Drake in the past, I think he’s a Toronto native as well. He’s very close to the OVO camp, he’s actually a really dope producer. He didn’t want to go too crazy because he wanted it to still sound like my beat. He didn’t want to change it up too much, but they took a few sounds out.”
