Engineer Extraordinaire Alex Tumay on His Favorite Modern Rap

Nobody knows prolific and mercurial Atlanta rapper Young Thug quite like audio engineer Alex Tumay. The Queens, NY, native has been the only professional able to keep up with the talented rapper, harnessing his abilities on the Slime Season trilogy of mixtapes, I’m Up and JEFFERY. An unheralded yet essential presence on a number of pivotal Atlanta hip-hop albums, Tumay has also worked with Travis Scott on Rodeo and lent his ear to “Highlights” from Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo.

After finishing engineering school, Tumay wound up at Atlanta’s Maze Studios working under the producer Ben Allen and later landed a gig at DARP Studios, where constant sessions with rappers kept him busy, agile and organized by necessity. His behind-the-scenes work has been especially crucial in shaping Young Thug’s recorded output, and he’s helped round out the hard sound of Atlanta’s top beatmakers. In this excerpt from his Headphone Highlights with Jeff Mao on Red Bull Radio, the straight-talking Tumay highlights ten songs he loves for reasons not necessarily related to the final mixdown, outlining how he separates his listening for work and pleasure and giving insight into his recent favorites.

Whenever one of my mom’s friends is like, “Tell me about what you do,” I’m like, “I take unfinished music that you hate, and that you hate that your son listens to (but he loves), and I make it sound acceptable for radio, and then I sometimes take the curse words out,” which I kind of emphasize. Then they’re a little bit more proud of me than they would have been otherwise.

When somebody who knows a little bit better asks, I always talk about how these records are normally recorded in unfavorable situations. Especially when I started working, a lot of the records were recorded in a house, in a basement, with some dude who didn’t know what he was doing, through a preamp that’s not working so well, through a mic that has eight years of weed smoke in it. I have to make that sound acceptable for the radio. My job isn’t really to do anything other than really take what the record’s trying to be and get it from point A to point B.

I found a way earlier on, especially because I worked on a lot of music that I listened to in my free time before I even started, to ignore and separate my job from enjoying music, because I never wanted to hate what I listen to. I always wanted to go back and be able to be like, “Oh, I love this record, because I listened to this record when I was driving my car and I was on a long roadtrip and it got me through it. Every single moment of it – I remember the signs I passed and all this stuff. I don’t care about the kick drum. I don’t care about any of that. I care about how it made me feel in the moment,” you know?

When I’m in a session, it’s flipped. Yeah, the vocals make me feel a certain type of way, and this makes me feel, but I’m super critical. “This has to a certain way. This has to be here. This has to be that.” I just flip a switch in my brain. “Now we’re here to work.” When I’m working, I don’t even realize that I’m listening to a song for, let’s say, eight hours straight, same song. It never gets tiring, because I’m listening for something different every time. It’s not for enjoyment. I want to make the song the best song it can be.

This is a mix of songs that affect me, in a way, but mostly it’s recent songs in the past year and a half, two years, that I’ve listened to that have kind of captured a certain feeling. The mix has captured what the song was trying to do. It’s maybe not a perfect mix, but I can still attach the memory to something in a moment. At the same time, I can attach the mix to the quality and how good the song is based off that, and how the engineer captured all that and brought it all together.

It doesn’t take a mix to make a song. It takes a mix to break a song. There might not be a great mix. There’s no such thing as a pretty mix. There’s never been a mix that has ever taken a bad song and made it good, but there has been a mix that has taken a good song and destroyed it. I think all you have to do is capture the essence of the song, and the essence of what the song is trying to get across without destroying the song and making it unlistenable. Really, what you have to do is take where the song is meant to go and bring it there. Everything else doesn’t matter. It doesn’t have to be pretty. It doesn’t have to be right. It just has to be good.

Sampha – “Blood On Me”

I heard this on my laptop for the first time, and I’ve never heard a song sound so good coming from crappy Mac Pro speakers. I was blown away. I hooked it up to the system, brought it to my car, went to my buddy’s studio and was like, “You gotta hear this.”

Every place I listened to it, I heard something different. I wouldn’t say I loved it more when I heard it in the studio, but I definitely heard what David Wrench was listening to when he was working on it, you know what I mean? He definitely had something in mind when he was working on the song. He’s worked on a bunch of records I like. I was like, “Holy shit. This dude just killed this.”

There’s breaths that you would think that he would have lowered. The breaths are pumping the mix. The percussion bouncing off the sides while he’s breathing and pushing, it’s kind of crazy. I listened to the song maybe 60, 70 times in a row. I do that. I can’t help it. I keep listening to it and keep listening to it. I was like, “Alright. I’m good.” I went to the other studio, and like ten times in a row, I listened to it again and again and again.

Drake – “Feel No Ways”

The way the vocals fit into the beat while fitting the emotional message of the song, to me, is important. I feel like on other tracks, like “Controlla,” it’s right. On “One Dance,” all that, it’s right, but “Feel No Ways” sonically stood out.

This song is warm and it shouldn’t be. It should be cold, because the song is about feeling nothing. It’s counterintuitive to how the song actually is. That song itself is a dark horse favorite for me. You have “Controlla,” “One Dance.” Those are standouts. “Feel No Ways” is what I end up going back to every time. I think it’s a mix thing, and I think it’s a quality of the song thing. Whatever him and 40 did, they killed it.

Kanye West – “Champions”

“Champions” has everyone and their mother on it. I think I might have worked on it. I cannot remember, because this was during the Days Before Rodeo. [Travis Scott] said he did it during Rodeo. I don’t really have the sessions for that, but it sounds familiar. He might have played it for me. I might have recorded the hook. I cannot remember.

It was a song that was clearly recorded in seven different places at seven different times, and you couldn’t tell. That’s important. There’s a few songs I’ve worked on that have been in the same situation. That’s the hardest part. This dude recorded here. This was recorded here. This we recorded here. They’re going back and forth. They have six bar verses or four bar verses, and they’re intertwining, or maybe in two or one and they’re going back, and one guy does two bars, and another guy does two bars and whatnot.

One dude’s recording on a TLM 103, and the other dude’s got a U47 and a way better vocal chain that [the other] is definitely not using, like an Avalon pre, and it’s just better. You have to balance – you have to make one worse or make one better. You can’t feel it on that song. The vocal mixing on that is one of Mike Dean’s... I was like, “Alright. He’s the GOAT. He’s the best ever.” I mean, I knew that already, because he’s done so many of my favorite albums. I was like, “That was solidifying.” The first time I heard it, I was like, “Nah.” An mp3 leak or something like that came out. The second version that came out that he really mastered and really mixed was just absurd.

D.R.A.M. & Lil Yachty – “Broccoli”

This is a song I’ve played more than maybe any song in my whole life, definitely any song in the past year. This song is the most fun song, and definitely the most fun mix. I don’t know if the mix is amazing or if it’s bad – it doesn’t matter, because it fits the song. The 808’s distorted and crushing, and the vocals are in your face, and Yachty kills it, and D.R.A.M. kills it, and the producer killed it. It’s insane, start to finish. The arrangement on that song is so weird, because it comes in, and then there’s Yachty's part, and then it’s right back in and it’s all D.R.A.M. for the rest of the song.

I’m staunchly on Yachty’s side when it comes to knowing history and acknowledging it and believing it’s important. He knows the history. He might not listen to it, but he knows. He knows what Tupac did. He knows the influence that was there. Why go backwards if we’re all trying to move forward? Just like what Tupac listened to when he was a kid. He listened to stuff that came right before him. The difference between [Yachty] and Tupac is Tupac didn’t have Twitter. The thing is, every little opinion that we have nowadays is super scrutinized. It’s under this magnifying glass and everyone can see it.

Really, you expect this really young 19-year-old kid to go and study hip-hip history and really listen to it? No. He grew up listening to Wayne, and he grew up listening to everything that was in the early ’90s just like every other kid did. What you listened to when you were 13 formulated what you listen to now and what you like now. You can’t blame a kid for not treating what he feels really is fun like school. Everybody can do their research. He will eventually sit down and listen and be like, “OK.” You know what he’s going to do after that? Go back and listen to his favorite albums that he grew up listening to. You can’t be mad at that at all.

SZA & Isaiah Rashad – “Warm Winds”

SZA hasn’t put out a project in a while, and she’s like my favorite singer. Isaiah Rashad is a top five rapper for me. I’ve been hounding him on the internet forever. I hound her, too. Now that I’m verified, I just like all her shit, like “She’s going to see this.” You get the little verified likes. I know she sees what’s going on. She’s talking about working on an album. We’re going to work on this album. I’m just going to keep liking and unliking the same post until you see. You’re going to get all these notifications to your phone. You’re going to notice me. I put this on here so that she would hear me, is why I did this. Hopefully she listens.

I personally believe that they need to do a joint album. They’re my two favorites off of TDE [Top Dawg Entertainment]. I love Kendrick, but there’s a special place in my heart for the two of them. I really love the music they do... It’s like this internal, “Here’s me” thing, both of them. I love it. Especially Isaiah. Everything he has, it’s him. If it’s not him, he’s not doing it. That’s why I like the beats, the production, the way his voice sounds on everything. It’s unique. He should be way bigger. The Sun’s Tirade, all the stuff he does is so good, always. I listen to his first project so much still. “Heavenly Father” almost made this list, but it’s three years old, so I was like, “I’m going to try to stick to the last 18 months-ish.”

Bon Iver – “715 (Creeks)”

In my free time, I do not listen to that much of the maximal style of music, where there’s a lot going on and it’s as loud as it can be and there’s as many musical elements as possible that you can fit into a song. This song, out of Bon Iver’s project 22, A Million, stood out to me. It’s just vocal production. It’s a lead vocal with a bunch of background vocals and effects on the background vocals. There’s not a single instrument in the bunch. There’s a lot of empty space and a lot of meaningful lyrics that just fuck your day up.

You might wake up in the morning and the sun’s shining. You open the window and you look out on the world and you press random play, and that song plays. You just get right back in bed and close the curtains and order room service, and it’s just a bottle of whiskey. You shut the lights off, and that’s it.

It didn’t need a single instrument. I really hope no one remixed it. The “I Love Kanye” remixes? Don’t do this to this song. Y’all leave this alone. This song’s good like it is. Y’all are going to make it worse, I promise.

Future – “Stick Talk”

I knew I needed to pick a song off [Dirty Sprite 2] because this album is so important to me. When I started DJing, I had to psych myself up somehow. I couldn’t do it with songs I worked on, because they just don’t hit me. I love the songs I worked on, but when I listen to them, I don’t think of how exciting the song is or what. I think of the experience that went on while recording it and how much fun we had. That’s a completely different mindset for me.

Dirty Sprite 2, when it dropped was right when I started DJing. I needed to hype myself up. “Stick Talk” was what I used. In the movie Creed, he’s walking back and forth punching the wall. That’s me before every show, except just jumping around like an idiot in the room.

I’m listening to “Stick Talk” and the energy on that song and the rawness of Future’s vocals, that came through in a way that resonated, obviously, with the world, because it’s Future’s highest-selling project. Every single song on that album is on par with the song that came before it. It doesn’t ever feel like it lets up. There’s so many four or five song runs on that album that fit. "Stick Talk" was the one that I always go back to. Seth Firkins, who’s Future's mix engineer, did an amazing job on that entire project. That’s my boy.

Travis Scott – “Mamacita”

I feel like [“Mamacita”] encapsulates so much of my career. It’s three artists and a producer that I work with the most… I had hundreds of songs with each of them. The producers are Metro Boomin and DJ Dahi. This is the first song I did with Dahi, but me and Metro are obviously one and the same when it comes to working on music. We always are working on similar projects and always trying to be in the same room working. Travis hit me while I was working on the Rich Gang stuff. He was like, “We have to do this in two days. Can you do it? I have two songs.” It was “Mamacita” and “Skyfall.”

The first day I spent on those two tracks. Then he came in the next day, we went over them, I was going to send them to mastering. It was coming out at 8:13 PM that day, Days Before Rodeo. He gave me four more tracks to mix. That whole experience is just so resonant with me, because that’s when I started convincing these dudes, “You’ve got to get mastering. You have to do this. You have to do that.” “Mamacita” was such a crazy session, because Travis Scott recorded his part in LA. Thug and Quan recorded their part in a different room at my studio, where I didn’t even know this song existed.

I got one part from Travis, which was off the grid. I don’t know if a lot of people understand, but the grid is how you would divide New York City. You know, where everything is based off corners? [Here] I don’t have corners. I don’t have anything. I have my ears. I have to move the entire song to be lined up. Then I have to line that up with a complete other session and then I got the beat track out, and every little individual stem from the beat separate, unarranged. I had to arrange everything there and mix all of these aspects of this song together, and Travis is a very intense person to mix for. He’s right over your shoulder the whole time. He knows what he wants. He wants to be perfect. He wants to be loud. He wants to be in your face.

The whole time, I’m trying to do the technical side of, “I have to mix this.” We have a few hours left. All these artists recorded in different spots. Everything about it was a roadblock. I got it all in order, thought I had it mixed, and he’s like, “The arrangement’s wrong. You’re missing this here, this here, this here.” He’s like, “You have to take this part and fly it here, here, here and here.” I’m thinking, “We’re a few hours away and I want to get this mastered.” I’m up against this clock and trying to get this song out.

At the end of the day, there are rules broken that I swear I would never break. I never want to digitally clip the 808’s in the red, you know what I mean? It turned out to be one of the better-sounding songs I’ve ever worked on, and easily a top ten of mine. It just means so much. It’s a culmination of a journey, you know what I mean? At the end of the day, through all the stress and all the pressure, it was the most gratifying to come out, because with all that stuff, it still turned out exactly how we both wanted it to turn out.

Young Thug – “Wyclef Jean”

The whole process of Jeffery was so insane… [“Wyclef Jean”] wasn’t meant to be a single. It was just the first session I got. I hadn’t heard anything like that from him, because I hadn’t been recording him like that. I’d only been mixing his stuff. I hadn’t been there in the whole process. When I heard it, I was like, “This is where you’ve been meaning to go. This is the lane that you’ve been pushing towards this whole time.”

I was like, “If this is what we’re going for, this is something special. I won’t forgive myself if I’m not a part of it.”

I had other shit going on, really important personal life shit. I was like, “No, I have to do this. This is what has to happen.” I think the dynamics in the song – Cassius Jay, I think Wheezy was on it – they destroyed it. The beat is insane. The sampling and all that, every little piece of that song is incredible. Then Thug’s rapping, of course. I feel like that’s a standard at this point. Everything he says is just mind-blowing. I mean, I might be a little biased.

21 Savage & Metro Boomin – “Savage Mode”

Sonically, this is the project I’m most proud of, because I spent an unbelievable amount of time tweaking stuff and sitting with Metro and being like, “What about this?” We got in the studio, and the studio hadn’t been tuned in a while. We thought the album was done, because we were in the same studio for two weeks, nonstop, every night... I went to another studio, I called Metro and I was like, “Something’s wrong.” I don’t know what it was about that studio, but the phasing or something, the low-end, everything about it, it just didn’t fit anymore. It wasn’t the intention. It was hitting too hard. It was like a typical trap album, which is not what we were trying to do. We were trying to create this atmosphere, like it still hits, it’s still big, but it’s not squashed.

I always talk about the word “spooky.” “Spooky” is my favorite word of all time. That’s what I go for. That’s a question that I ask myself. “Is it spooky enough?” That song… there’s subtle gunshots. You know when you hear gunshots in a rap song, and it blows you away, louder than anything in the song? They’re quieter than the vocals. Most people don’t know they're in there. If you listen again, it’s like, “Bah!” The gunshots in the background, it sounds almost like his breath. All that is just so atmospheric, and the distortion we had on the 808, all that just fits into this little hole all together. That song just makes me happy.