“Hey.” “What’s up?” “Happy birthday.” “Thank you.” “Was your 16th year the craziest year of your life?” “Yeah, so far. Singing: “I got black, I got white, what you want? Hop outside a Ghost and hop up in a Phantom. I know I’m ’bout to blow, I ain’t dumb. They try to take my flow, I take they ass for ransom.” “Did you ever think that this song could be top-five on the Billboard Hot 100?” “Yeah, I did. You want to know what’s crazy? I’d never been to the studio until, like, last year. So before that, all my music I was recording it myself and I was mixing it myself.” “And where were you getting the beats?” “YouTube. YouTube, always.” “We love you, Tecca.” Singing: “Yeah I know you see the drip and you like it. Wanna text me but your pride tryin’ to fight it.” “At the time, I was the only person in Long Island that had like a wave going on.” “Who’s the hottest rapper on Long Island?” “Lil Tecca.” “Lil Tecca was the [expletive].” “You’re really hot in these streets.” “Yeah.” “From the first day I met Tecca, I knew he was going to be a global superstar. There was something different about him. His place was to be at a major label and partner with one. We just became like really close off rip.” “We consistently just try to focus on like breaking artists and building artists, and if we never did that, people like Tecca wouldn’t be here.” “Internet Money, bitch.” “What is Internet Money?” “It all started because we were on the internet, and we were all internet producers. I was just like, man, y’all are cool kids, man. I just want to like help develop y’all. I was making, like, half a million a year, you know, just selling beats on the internet. Tight beats is a way that you can just use to get yourself out there. The minute the door cracked just a little bit from that, I just kicked it open, brought everybody in with me. Then, Nick surpassed everybody and started becoming like this legendary super-producer.” “Where are you today?” “I’m in Virginia, in my house here.” “Is this like your parents’ house?” “Yeah.” “Can we see around your bedroom?” “I mean I guess.” “What’s the plaque?” “This one is ‘Lucid Dreams’ going one on hip-hop songs. We got the ‘X’ album going platinum, a single over there. Bunch of Juice stuff. Got some more down here for just like Billboard ones.” “Too many plaques to hang on the wall.” “Yeah, not enough wall space, really.” “Tell me about discovering Lil Tecca.” “I’d seen him at first and went, man, this kid looks goofy. But then, I think I heard like ‘Love No Thot.’” Singing: “I can’t love no thot. A thot is a girl is a girl that can’t get no love from me.” “From that moment forward, I always told everybody, ‘Man, I feel like this kid is going to blow up.’” “I told my mom that a producer wanted me to come to L.A. to work on a project. She was like, ‘What, boy?’ So, like I had to explain to her and stuff first before I was allowed to go.” “Working with Internet Money was an honor because it was like our first time that a producer as talented as them was like, ‘Yo, we really want to work with you.’ We booked our flight to L.A. the next day.” “Were you nervous?” “No. I was just meeting a dude and we’re going to make some songs. It was a fire-ass house. There was someone in the back making beats, so I knew I wasn’t at the wrong place.” “He wanted some Gunna Lil Baby beats or something. And I was like, ‘No, I don’t really see it. I was like, bro like —’ because my favorite song from him was ‘Love No Thot,’ which is real like melodic, dancehall records. I was like, ‘You should do those.’” “Taylor hits me up on FaceTime. ‘Dude, I want you to make some dancehall melodies, like that you could really see if you like some dancehall drums too, but I want you switch it and do trap stuff on it.’ I know like dancehall beats — they’re really simple, so I didn’t want to complicate it, but I wanted to sound full so I layered it with like another keyboard in the back. I added another background snare. So that gives it a lot of bounce.” “And you made that in how long?” “I don’t know, think it was like six, seven minutes.” “What kind of feeling do you get when you hear a beat that you want to rap over?” “It’s like an anxious feeling that you want to get the song done, like this.” “So what was the first line you put down for ‘Ransom?’” “I got black, I got white — My dad always told me the beat talks to you. If the beat’s not talking to you, don’t do it. So, the beat was just talking to me.” “What else did it tell you to say?” “After that, I just started going.” “When he started laying down lines for ‘Ransom,’ was there something that stood out to you?” “I’m going to be real, man, no. Because at that point, it was like the third or fourth song we did, so I’m already tripping off like the first two songs. To me, I was like, man, how many are we going to get out of this night, you know what I mean?” “And that one night, they made six or seven songs, like each song was so perfect.” “He definitely was in the zone, you know. I think he made ‘Did It Again’ and ‘Ransom’ back to back.” “My favorite was ‘Ransom.’ Everyone else’s favorite was like, ’Yo, ‘Did It Again’ is harder.’” “Were you signed at this point?” “No.” “Nobody was really giving him a deal at the time, and I was like, yo, this kid’s fire. I want to sign this kid. And they were just like, ‘No, I don’t see it. I don’t think he’s a star. I don’t think he has the ability and the quality looks to pop.’ And I was just like, ‘What?’” Singing: “I got black, I got white, what you want? Hop outside a Ghost and hop up in a Phantom.” “He’s really good at getting people’s attention with the Triller videos and everything like that. And even before a song drops, he’ll have it stuck in your head.” Singing: “Now they say they want some. I got two twin Glocks, turn you to a dancer.” “I would play the song for months, and I would be like, ‘When is the song going to come out? Is it ever going to come out?’ Then randomly, I saw Cole Bennett and Lil Tecca together like on Instagram.” “When did it become a thing that every up-and-coming SoundCloud rapper needed a Cole Bennett video to help them take off?” “I get DMs and messages and people come up to me all the time and say, you know, ‘If I get a video from you, I promise I’ll blow up.’ Just kind of saying, you’re kind of like the one-way ticket.” “A compelling artist plus an Internet Money beat plus a Cole Bennett video, is that a hit?” “Yeah, 100%.” “We wanted to go somewhere tropical and just have fun and shoot a video. And it was a small video, budget — he wasn’t signed. So after we started getting all the flights, I was like, ‘Yep, there goes the budget for this video.’” Singing: “I got red, I got blue, what you want? The Chanel or Balenciaga, Louis and Vuitton. She know I got the Fendi, Prada when I hit Milan. I needed me a die or rider, I need me the one.” “A week after we dropped ‘Ransom,’ I just got random calls, ‘Like, hello, who’s this?’ ‘This is Alex from Billboard Magazine. I was calling to get information about Lil Tecca because we have him charting him here with ‘Ransom.’” “I think I found out in the morning, and my mom told me.” “Had there been label interest?” “For a fact.” “A bidding war broke out and it was just a really hectic 48, 72 hours.” “When the time was right, I signed.” “Is it a little bit bittersweet now to see Tecca signed to a major label and blow up?” “Yeah, it hurts, you know what I mean? Because I knew he was going to be this big.” “Three, two, one.” “When positive things happen you can’t be surprised, because that’s what you wanted to happen in the first place. You can’t be like, ‘Gee, this is crazy.’ This is what is supposed to be going on.” “So the success you’ve had with ‘Ransom,’ you feel like you earned it?” “Of course. Me and my fans earned it. Singing: “I know that I’m gone. They see me blowing up, now they say they want some. I got two twin Glocks, turn you to a dancer.” “How have you seen Lil Tecca change since the success of ‘Ransom?’” “He’s the same person. I don’t know, a change in what sense?” “I heard he grew a bit.” “Well, that he did.” “He was small. Whenever we recorded this record, he just hit puberty or something. Every time I see him, I’m like, ‘God damn, boy, you getting tall.’”