ATL Jacob exclusive BOSSIP interview about music, Future, producing

Happy #BlackMusicMonth!

Source: JMP / JMP

To call 2022 a successful year for 23-year-old Jacob Canady is an understatement despite the word’s perceived accuracy. 2022 has been a generation-changing year for the producer professionally known as ATL Jacob. The sense of how monumental his meteoric rise has been is certainly not lost on him nor his family, “They tell me congratulations like five times a day,” jokes Jacob during our exclusive sit-down with him in Atlanta.

You’ve likely heard his producer tag “ATL Jacob! ATL Jacob!” on some of your favorite songs over the past few months but we’ll run them down for you just in case you missed the memo.

Jacob is responsible for the sound bed behind Kodak Black’s “Super Gremlin”, Lil Baby’s “Right On”, Future and Kanye West’s “KEEP IT BURNIN”, Future, Gunna, and Young Thug’s “FOR A NUT”, and Future, Drake, and Tems’ “WAIT FOR U” and to be honest, we’re still leaving out several more bangers. The point is that Jacob is a force to be reckoned with. When asked specifically about how “WAIT FOR U” came about Jacob said it wasn’t initially the slam dunk that he wanted. But his work ethic and persistence willed it to be, “With WAIT FOR U, I really wanted Future to do that and I really wanted Drake on that beat too. I knew it was crazy.” In a previous interview with Complex, Jacob talked about how it took Future quite some time before recording to his track.

How did “Wait for U” with Drake and Tems come together? 

I made the beat for “Wait for U” so long ago. That’s the crazy part. I made it about a year ago. I just knew it was a vibe. I was like, “This is hard,” and I knew I was going to give it to Future. Then he skipped it. But we were talking the other day when we were at Drake’s house, and he said he skipped it because he knew it was one of his favorites. He said he listened to that beat every day for a month straight, without rapping or nothing. He was just listening to the beat like it was a song for a month straight, and he knew what he was going to do to it.

Jacob also told us that TEMS was initially reluctant to clear the sample from her song “Higher” but the producer says her original is one of his favorite songs and he was inspired to create based on her blueprint. In fact, it took a little convincing from Drake personally to get her to see the vision,

“When she first found out about the record she didn’t want to clear it. She loves her original song which is understandable as an artist. She ain’t want to clear it. Drake hopped on the phone and got it cleared for us. Shoutout to Drake and shoutout to TEMS.”

Beyond making music for other artists, Jacob has his own aspirations to get on the mic and give people his other gift as an MC,

“I’ll be honest with you, I like producing but I like to rap better. So, being a number one producer–everybody be like ‘That’s crazy!” and I’m like, ‘It’s cool but I wanna rap though. Listen to this!'”

Jacob’s ambition and professional progress has not made him lose sight of the fact that kids from his city also have ambitions and could use a helping hand to help reach their goals.

With all the hits he’s turning out, he’ll soon have all the space and opportunity to make his mark as a multi-hyphenate mainstay in hip-hop culture. We can’t wait to see how it develops.