“I always say that with Abel’s thing, I’m known as this R&B producer, but prior to that, I wasn’t,” muses executive producer Doc McKinney, as his signature Lennon glasses reveal a modest glint in his eye from beneath their translucent green lenses. His warm and leveled tone is laid-back and unaffected—though far from apathetic, as he mulls over the undeniable impact that his opus, House of Balloons, had on Toronto since its release 7 years ago. As one of the most intense collaborations of his career, his work with Abel Tesfaye onset the city’s R&B renaissance in an unprecedented span of 7 months—but McKinney began laying his sonic fingerprints over the musical fabric of the city long before The Trilogy’s critical acclaim gave rise to The Weeknd as he’s known today.

Doc McKinney recently celebrated the 20th anniversary of his work as a producer on Esthero’s _Breath from Another—_a clamorous, yet organic trip-hop record that embraces an expansive instrumental palette, and peppers in every limb of McKinney’s broad taste which he’s calibrated over the course of his career. “It was funny because Brendan Canning and Kevin Drew from Broken Social Scene lent me guitar pedals for that record,” he recalls. “I had Evan [Cranley] from Stars doing horns on it. There was a great cast of musicians.”

Recorded in 1998, Breath From Another is a record that draws equally from Gangstarr and Mobb Deep as it does from My Bloody Valentine and Bjork, but McKinney lightheartedly insists that he didn’t necessarily know what he was doing at the time of its recording. “I was actually trying to be the next DJ Premier,” he laughs. “I’m a massive Jodeci fan and massive Mavericks fan, so to me it sounds pretty consistent in the music I do, where it sounds like a very conflicted mix kid that’s trying to figure out his identity, or trying to get everyone to just get along.”

Although McKinney now divides his time between Toronto and Los Angeles, he grew up in St. Paul and Minneapolis, and has seen firsthand how the energy of a great artist can consume a city. What Drake and The Weeknd culled from and for Toronto recalls the “Prince effect” he witnessed living in the Twin Cities. “People would be getting off the Greyhound dressed like Prince, coming from wherever USA,” he tells. “Watching that impact of what one artist was able to do—bring people from sunny parts of the United States to a freezing cold place like Minneapolis to hopefully get a glimpse of him or baptize themselves in Lake Minnetonka and become great.”

While some may argue that The Trilogy went on to hold the city’s musical identity in a chokehold for years to come, McKinney believes that its impact is often oversold, as a result of the critical acclaim the record fostered. “There was always great music here, but when I moved here it seemed like such an impossible feat for the number one artist of the world to come from Toronto,” he recalls. “I feel like it’s weird because there are so many other people here that were doing crazy shit. For me, T-Minus—he also set the tempo of the sound. There’s a lot of credit that could go other places.”

Distinguished by his fervent aversion to the notion of any industry standards, McKinney privileges naturally-occurring ideas as they come, as opposed to edited takes in the modern style. While his foray into DAWs began with Cubase, the self-described “hip-hop head” cites his first production tool as an MPC60. “Fortunately, I’m not the best musician, so it comes out sounding like me almost every time,” he adds.