Inside The Credits 013: Coupe/Dilip
Coupe and Dilip’s Path To Collision For Kenny Mason
2024 was starting to feel like a slow start for music until March. It’s strange to not feel like any album has held my ears for the first two months of a year. Then, this past month I found a few that lingered. What was missing in January and February was cohesion combined with sonic or lyrical moments that struck a mental or emotional nerve. This, in turn, is what leads to repeatability, at least for me. Even with a slew of solid bodies of work out now though, Atlanta rapper/crooner/rager Kenny Mason’s 9 is the most deftly balanced and condensed. It’s a capsule of vivacity you can consistently take a dose of for your eardrums.
On each of the 9 tracks from this album, one of the producers credited is either Coupe or Dilip. The two producers paths had not crossed until this project but both have significant credits for interesting arrays of artists prior. It feels like the synchronicity of Mason’s multifaceted pockets of sound is due to their woven textures. Thus, giving the duo the first dual post of this Substack.
The producer with the earliest credits is Dilip. He has a few sparse 2016 credits for indie rappers like Abhi The Nomad but his momentum began to really pick up in 2017. That year he produced a track “Nowadays” for the burgeoning rapper Lil Skies and co-produced with producer Danny Wolf an exceptionally popular loosie for trouble-riddled rapper Tay-K in “Coolin.” The leaked version, which is the only version ever released, debuted on WorldStarHipHop and immediately took off. This is also the first beat that Dilip produced that precursors the aggression within his Kenny Mason production. The pulsing rhythm on “Coolin” very much mirrors a track like “MONEY SIGNS” by Mason in its assertive bounce.
2018 proved to be a steady elevation again as Dilip co-produced with Wolf for the likes of Lil Xan, Hoodrich Pablo Juan, and Lil Pump. The beats stayed generally in the same pocket but definitely increased their use of sharper textures. Dilip also began producing for Tobi Lou from Chicago in 2018 which would allow him to experiment with more smooth melodic textures. This would mark the beginning of a rapport between the two that would culminate in some truly special songs. 2018’s “Troop” by Tobi Lou featuring Smino is also my favorite song from the first two years of Dilip’s credits. He clearly took some of that same bounce he learned how to execute with Danny Wolf but channeled it into a world of moon bouncy ethereal synths. It’s the feeling of this composition that translates later to 9, rather than the technical elements. On Kenny Mason’s track “CHOSEN” there’s a bright vibrancy that is essential for completing the overall project’s soundscape. Without it, 9 can’t sequence into the Soul of the closing track “LUMINOUS” with nearly enough fluidity.
2019 is where Dilip kept moving on a steady trajectory and Coupe began his journey. Dilip had a barrage of credits on tracks for Lil Skies (again), Rockie Fresh, Smookie Margiela, and Blocboy JB. But his biggest accomplishment that year was his two tracks, “New Drip” and “Killswitch,” with the one and only Soulja Boy. Here you get to hear Dilip be truly playful. His bounce became solidified and he got to bring some of that Tobi Lou buoyancy in to intertwine it with the aggressive stuff. While Mason and Soulja Boy have very little in common delivery-wise, the enthusiasm that peaks through the melancholy of the beats Dilip gave Mason for 9 could be rooted here. Coupe then burst onto the scene with his first credit for who continues to be his main collaborator, Yung Nudy. His sole credit on Nudy’s 2018 album Faded In The Booth on the track “Homies” would immediately make it apparent that the duo had undeniable chemistry.
Coupe would basically split the main production on Nudy’s 2020 album Anyways in half with producer 20rocket. This type of ratio clearly foreshadows his eventual one with Dilip for Mason. Coupe’s early work with Nudy can be simply described as subdued smooth Atlanta stoner music. It’s mostly composed of steady drum sequences and discreet yet lingering synths. There is a pocket here that is established though, which succinctly translates to the opening four tracks on 9. Mason’s project eases you into the energy setting you up for an explosion. Coupe’s inherent restraint allows for the album’s sonics to not go over the edge too early.
Dilip spent his 2020 producing for three artists: Yung Gravy, ZeelooperZ, and Tobi Lou. Both Gravy tracks definitely are an extension of the Soulja Boy goofiness but those songs as well as the ZelooperZ ones also signify a clear expansion for Dilip. He started messing around with sampling in a more traditional Hip Hop sense. The best track he did that year for ZelooperZ was “Arugula,” which samples an early 70s Soul song “Can’t Be Alone” by the group Hodges, James and Smith. This song is so essential for what would become the closing track on 9, “LUMINOUS.” For “Arugula,” Dilip still maintained his Trap adjacent bounce but found a way to flip a sample to evoke the feeling of triumphant gratitude. This emotion translates seamlessly to the sampled soundscape on “LUMINOUS.”
One of the 2020 tracks Dilip produced for Tobi Lou also features a significant sonic shift into Alternative Rock which is Dilip’s first sign of experimenting with an element essential to the Kenny Mason ethos. “Endorphins” has a gloomy guitar that starts the track which eventually leads into R&B and Baltimore Club textures. But that initial feel of the plucked strings still precursors a Rock exploration that would be expanded soon.
Dilip’s peak production moment up through 2020 happens next on Tobi Lou’s “2hrs+,” which would eventually get a 2021 remix featuring T-Pain (one of my favorite tracks of that year). He took the sampling ability he learned with Gravy and ZelooperZ and displayed it with a more modern flip of Contemporary R&B crooner RAAHiiM’s “Peak (Fed Up).” Then he laid the most heart thumping R&B cadence to weave it all together for Tobi’s heartbreak ballad.
In 2021, Coupe kept cooking and expanding with Nudy, but into darker territory on his albums DR. EV4L and Rich Shooter. Two tracks of the 18 he produced for Nudy that year set the initial tone for his work with Mason on the tracks “EASY DUB,” “4 MY,” and “MONEY SIGNS” off 9. There is a horror film undertone to 9 that first broods beneath Nudy on his tracks “Child’s Play” feat. 21 Savage and “Wicked For The Money” feat. 2FeetBino. They both feature Jason Vorhees adjacent synths to induce a spooky feel on the soundscapes. This sort of Atlanta scary suspense is a texture Mason would eventually thrive within. That same year Dilip would continue to craft sample riddled bouncy slaps with Tobi Lou like “Babycakes,” but also work with Atlanta multi-hyphenate Zach Fox on his shut the fuck up talking to me album full of bangers. Interestingly here, there is some horror crossover on the track “boy i’m on yo ass.” Dilip used an old Frankenstein movie staccato organ/piano sound to uplift Fox’s flagrant bars. This, combined with Coupe’s more subtle creepy vibes, would meet Mason for a pure equilibrium three years later.
While 2022 was a bit of a discreet year of sparse credits for Dilip, Coupe had a real breakout expansion. Dilip did rogue songs for Tony Shhnow, Cousin Stizz, and AG Club while Coupe did near full albums for Nudy (again), Swavay, and for the first time Kenny Mason. While the Nudy record was mostly just an extension of their previous work and the Swavay album had some interesting experiments, his work on Mason’s album RUFFS was a real turning point. Suddenly we hear Coupe producing on slick sample based records like “SHELL” and “HALOS” much like Dilip (which is interesting because he has no crediting on those types of records on 9). But the big game changer was his credits on the two Hard Rock tracks “HALLOWEEN” and the absolute brain crushing meteor of a song “MINUTE FOREVER.” The latter is still one of my favorite Kenny Mason songs. Both tracks fuse raging guitar and bass with thumping trap drums but “MINUTE FOREVER” has an element of momentum to it that proved Coupe could help fuel Mason at his most turbulent.
“MINUTE FOREVER” seems to have a direct link to the best song on 9, “US.” Coupe is credited but not Dilip, which may seem surprising if all you know Coupe for is his Nudy work. “US” is a full song version of the energy Mason gives on the hook Dreamville posse cut “Stick.” It is a convulsing lava flowing expression of dismissing naysayers and proclaiming freedom from mental grapplings. It is the essential climax of Mason’s latest and best work. Both producers, in the Aristotelian plot sense, intertwined their gathered abilities to form exposition, suspense, winding resolve, and culmination, but Coupe had to work with Mason to find his fury before he could add the most vital piece to the album’s arc.
Last year, in 2023, Dilip got his stride back with ZelooperZ, Lil Tecca, Mick Jenkins, and Denzel Curry, but peaked on an album with Punk Rappers Paris Texas on their project MID AIR. Not only did he advance in developing his own Rock proficiency, but he also worked with Mason for the first time as he featured on what I think is the album’s best song “DnD.” Mason spits one of his most prolific verses he’s ever rapped here dissecting the dichotomies of his eclectic, yet organic to who he is, genre fusion. As Dilip worked with Mason through this expression, and executed other Paris Texas tracks like “Everybody’s Safe Until…,” he formed a necessary proving ground. Without them he couldn’t have made “SLIP” on 9 featuring Toro y Moi with such immaculate melancholy.
Coupe, in 2023, developed even more pocket and verve with both Nudy and Mason resulting in maybe the biggest hit yet of his career, “Peaches & Eggplants,” and his two most gloomy guitar heaters, “DARKSIDE” and “FACTS.” He then started 2024 with two tracks he produced appearing on 21 Savage’s american dream album and met Dilip at the perfect time on Mason’s 9.
Going back to Aristotle, both producers seem to have needed to connect as they reached their climactic zenith to make 2024’s best album thus far. Their alternate sonic universes had to collide through Mason’s vocals to be able to finally reach a denouement together.
Inside The Credits 013: Coupe/Dilip- The Playlists