That process culminated with What a Time to Be Alive, the smash split album from Future and Drake that was recorded in one nutso week in Atlanta under Metro’s careful watch. He crafted the majority of its massive sounds, both elegant and defiled at the same damn time. For his work, he holds the album’s honorific title “Executive Producer.”

“I remember, it was like six in the morning,” Metro says, of one typically hectic session for What a Time. “I had been up in the studio all night mixing beats. And [Drake] come in in the middle of the night to fuck with ‘Jumpman.’”

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“[Drake] was playing a new verse,” Metro says. “And I heard ‘Jumpman, jumpman/ Metro Boomin on production, wow.’” Then Drake turned around and looked at Metro, expectantly, waiting for approval. It’s funny to imagine: Drake, the increasingly calculated, increasingly remote superstar, just wanting Metro to feel him. Recalling the moment Metro lets off one of his regular easy smiles, showing the endearing bit of snaggle-tooth on the left side of his mouth. “And I was like, OK. OK. I fuck with that! I fuck with you!”

When trying to wrestle down the source of Metro’s success, there’s a clutch of factors to weigh. The decade of plugging away, the adaptability of his sounds, the forehead-accoutrement-based image-branding. And then there is something more amorphous: his all-together warm vibes.

It sounds silly, to call his lovability an asset. But remember that this is a business in which people spend long, late hours together. And know that that’s what people tack to when describing him, again and again. DJ Spinz, his collaborator and close friend, remembers thinking this early upon meeting him: “He has good energy, deep down inside. I think he’s gonna end up in a good place.” Says Sonny Digital of the early days: “He brought the energy. He made me wanna make beats. I wanted him around.”

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Earlier this year, Metro got his biggest look to date: Kanye West tapped him to co-produce a small chunk of his event album The Life of Pablo. The co-sign felt like a natural recognition of the run that Metro has had in the last few years. But Kanye stood to gain something too. Would TLOP have felt as virally, vividly of-its-time without Metro?

At one point, early on the album, nestled perfectly between a sample of sweet ’70s gospel from Pastor T.L. Barrett and the drop of the drums, is the sound of Future’s voice. He’s rolling out a twisty little phrase: If young Metro don’t trust you, I’mma shoot ya.

Metro had been using that peculiar stanza (it’s from a little known Uncle Murda song called “Right Now”) as his tag for a few months at that point. But from that Kanye plug, it took on a life of its own. Which is to say—the memes have abounded.

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The tag has been spliced into clips of Degrassi and The Social Network and New Jack City and Taken. (Liam Neeson, phone to his ear, a gun extended out: “Young Metro, you trust this nigga?”) After protesters managed to shut down a Donald Trump rally in Chicago early this spring, a photo of one joyous sign made the rounds: “Metro Boomin Doesn’t Trust Trump.” When presidential washout Ben Carson was asked, and failed, to complete the phrase in an interview with Complex, it cemented its status as the current communal secret-handshake of young America.

Maybe it’s an accident, the way that drop has connected—the way it has served to nod at a kind of generational the-world-is-burning-but-we-know-the-answers malaise. But know that the tag you hear is an alternate take nearly left on the trash heap. Metro just liked it better: it was more “muted.”

Now, “every show I play it at, it’s crazy,” Metro says. “They scream that part.”

