Lex Luger's Unprecedented Rise to Fame
You may not know the name Lex Luger, but you’ve definitely heard his work.
From Rick Ross’ massive hit “BMF (Blowin’ Money Fast)” to Wacka Flocka Flame’s “Hard In Da Paint,” Luger is unquestionably one of the hottest producers in the game right now. And he’s only 20 years old.
His story is fascinating. Luger got his start using Fruity Loops, a simple, starter kit-like piece of beat-making software. It was on this program that he composed the above mentioned tracks. Fast forward to a year later, and Lex finds himself chillin’ in the studio with Jay-Z, Kanye West and Beyonce.
The New York Times has a great piece on Luger, his rapid rise to fame, and the way the internet has expanded opportunities for young people to have their voices heard.
From the New York Times:
” A few years ago, before anyone knew his name, before rap artists from all over the country started hitting him up for music, the rap producer Lex Luger, born Lexus Lewis, now age 20, sat down in his dad’s kitchen in Suffolk, Va., opened a sound-mixing program called Fruity Loops on his laptop and created a new track. It had a thunderous canned-orchestra melody, like an endless loop of some bombastic moment from Wagner or Danny Elfman; a sternum-rattling bass line; and skittering electronic percussion that brought to mind artillery fire. When the track was finished, he e-mailed it to a rapper named Waka Flocka Flame. Luger had recently spent a few months in Atlanta with Waka, sequestered in a basement, producing most of the music for Waka’s debut album. Waka had asked him for one more beat, one that could potentially be the album’s first single.
Months later, Luger — who says he was “broke as a joke” by that point, about to become a father for the second time and seriously considering taking a job stocking boxes in a warehouse — heard that same beat on the radio, transformed into a Waka song called “Hard in da Paint.” Before long, he couldn’t get away from it.”