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When Isaiah Rashad and producer Kal Banx feel homesick for the nursery, as the only two southern bruhs signed with the TDE West Coast Power Plant are sometimes forced to do, they find themselves bonding to the more pleasures. simple. Like going halfway over a store-bought roast chicken. “With mashed potatoes and cornbread,†Kal adds.
“On God,†calls out Isaiah.
If Top Dawg thought there would be fringe benefits in tying the natives of Tennessee and Texas, he was right. They quickly became friends even before we made a piece of music together. This foundation was crucial. Because when the music finally came, we had to cut everything that was blocking the blessings of Isaiah Rashad.
Released last July, The house is on fire could be interpreted as a metaphor for the burning mess of planet Earth and Isaiah’s own inner demons. To survive all of this, Isaiah had to battle rehab, a writer’s block, and three months of refuge spent on Kal Banx’s couch with his pockets on E.
Perhaps out of necessity, Kal has become more than a star beatmaker. Studio sessions didn’t begin until after he led Isaiah into silly hijackings in YouTube’s weirdest burrows. Laughter has become existential. It helped Isaiah get out of his head and record everything in his head. On “Hey Mista,†one of the many songs Banx produced or co-produced on the album, he cut and glued freestyle bars by Zay into two verses and a bridge. And he took additional musical cues from Isaiah to create rhythms that tapped into Zay’s old soul.
Together, in the funniest shoot of the new season of The Formula, they walk us through the creation of the song that ignited the spark on the album. In the process, they reveal how the best artist-producer collaborations work much like life – with real friends to distract us from all of our drama and make it soundtrack. —Rodney Carmichael
ABOUT SEASON 2 OF THE FORMULA
In this season of “The Formula”, we sit down with some of hip-hop’s most respected emerging artist-producer duos as they dissect iconic songs from their collective work – whether it’s an album, a epoch or moment in rhyme. Because the real cachet of a timeless collaboration comes when the two musicians in play find themselves forever transformed by the mix. Find new episodes on npr.org/laformule:
• Rico Nasty + Kenny Beats
• Freddie Gibbs + The Alchemist (Saturday November 6)
• Westside Gunn + conductor Williams (Saturday 13 November)
• Tierra Whack + J Melodic (Saturday 20 November)
CREDITS
Series Host / Producer: Rodney Carmichael; Producers: Tsering Bista, Nickolai Hammar; Publisher: Annabel Edwards; Artistic Director / Animator: CJ Riculan; Moderators: Jackie Lay, Alicia Zheng; Director of Photography: Nickolai Hammar; Sound engineer: Josh Rogosin; Videographers: Jack Corbett, Nickolai Hammar, Alicia Zheng; Production assistant: Amna Ijaz; Project coordinator: Erin Register; Legal Advisor: Kimberly Sullivan; Consulting Editors: Jacob Ganz, Sidney Madden; Supervising Producer, Nick Michael; Senior Producer: Abby O’Neill; Editor-in-Chief: Becky Lettenberger; Executive Producers: Anya Grundmann, Keith Jenkins; Special thanks: Hardpink Studio and its staff
MUSIC
“Hey Mista”, Isaiah Rashad, The House Is Burning (2021); “Rose water” by DJ Face