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Joe LaPorta understands the fast-paced nature of rap music. “[When I left New York University], the industry was completely different,” says the 44-year-old mastering engineer who has worked with everyone from Imagine Dragons to Miley Cyrus and, more recently, Future and Metro Boomin. “It was still a physical medium. There were many more planned releases. There wasn't that freedom of being able to release stuff within a day of its creation.”
Future and Metro Boomin are moving comfortably at today's pace. The longtime collaborative duo recently released two albums less than a month apart, We Don't Trust You and We Still Don't Trust You. The GrandStand engineer began working with Metro Boomin nearly a decade ago when the latter produced his collaborative album Savage Mode featuring Atlanta MC 21 Savage. From there, LaPorta was consistently tapped to work on several other projects by the sought-after producer thanks to Metro's “right-hand man,” Ethan Stevens, a recording engineer with executive producer credits to his name.
LaPorta says the two artists wanted their latest full-length to feel like Future releases, incorporating dusty soul samples and '80s boom bap while maintaining Future's classic trap sound. “We have this cool collaborative process where he hears how I'm mastering it, he might make some adjustments, I might have some suggestions for him,” LaPorta says. “We work really well that way.”
It's a good thing to be so invited because whenever a project comes up, LaPorta says it's usually released soon. His goal with projects Future and Metro — both of which debuted atop the Billboard 200, with We Don't Trust You logging a multi-week Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 with “Like That” — was to make sure “everything is very consistent from track to track… There's nothing more boring than a record that doesn't have those ups and downs. [It’s] good ride and constantly changing. That's the great thing about these records.”
This story will appear in the April 27, 2024 issue Advertising sign.
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/music/rb-hip-hop/metro-boomin-future-albums-mastering-engineer-joe-laporta-interview-1235666431/