Inside The Credits 019: Alex Lustig
How’d Alex Lustig Become OVO’s Secret Weapon?
It’s been an interesting sequence of events for the OVO label recently. Obviously, Drake had a rap battle with Kendrick Lamar. It seems to be finished, with Drake having to officially hold an L, but we sure will see as many parts of the battle have become unpredictable. On Kendrick’s seemingly final knockout blow, “Not Like Us,” other OVO members besides Drake even had shots thrown at them. Yet, in the midst of all that hoopla, the elusive crooner PARTYNEXTDOOR released his highly anticipated fifth full length album on April 26th. It had been four years since his last and in that time he arguably put together his most complete and lucid body of work. As exciting as the battle was, it must not be lost how impressive Party’s elevation has become through taking his time. What really stands out about the album is the deftness in the sequencing, and when I looked into the credits I got a bit of an idea as to why that might be.
Party’s OVO labelmate Naomi Sharon’s 2023 album Obsidian, is the best sequenced non Drake OVO album I’ve ever heard (dvsn’s 2016 SEPT 5TH album comes close). When it touched my ears last year, I had to find out who was behind it. I landed on two names who handled the overwhelming majority of the production, Beau Nox and Alex Lustig. Nox is nowhere to be found on the new Party record, but Lustig is credited on half of the tracks. I could only deduce one thing: this sudden OVO elevation in symmetry must be traced to Lustig.
Lustig has had a slow yet steady eight year rise with production for Drake’s label, which I will chronicle in a bit. But first, I’d be remiss to not lay out the mastery within other credited tracks in Lustig’s catalog. Since he rose with OVO over eight years time, I’ve chosen eight non OVO tracks of his to dissect musically first, in order of release date.
“Dirty Diana” by Gunna
This Mike Jack homage has every element of a classic Gunna Wunna smash. A smooth as silk guitar loop and spacial Trap drums fit perfectly around pattery crooned pockets of wonder.
“No Surprise” by Young Thug feat. Bslime & Don Toliver
This instrumental is a subtle yet poignant improvement on the last instrumental. A slightly more dynamic guitar loop is accompanied by choppier and more rhythmically interesting percussion sequences so Lustig could align the two styles of Thugga and Don Toliver.
“Bouncin’, Pt.2” by Tinashé
Here things get really intriguing. An H-town adjacent underwater feeling soundscape allows Tinashé to backstroke through a celestial instrumental. She sings about being totally in rhythm with a romantic partner and Lustig propels the intimacy of the expression.
“Dididumduhduh” by Aminé
This is one of my personal favorite deep cuts in Aminé’s catalog. It still feels like the centerpiece to his more Alternative sounding TWOPOINTFIVE album. In this context, I have now realized it is an exact fusion of the Tinashé and Gunna sound Lustig previously mastered. Putting those two together means you naturally get something perfect for Aminé.
“HOV” by Rema
This was an interesting switch for Lustig, as he gave Rema a slightly more four on the floor and Pop riddled track for his breakout album Rave & Roses. It is a short song, thus it feels like just a sample of his proficiency during a time of experimenting in a new space. But it sure would translate to some future OVO elevation.
“Idk that bitch” by Gunna feat. G Herbo
Interestingly, on the previous Rema track there is a faded vocal sample that adds a cool element of atmosphere. On this song, Lustig’s most recent Gunna collab, there is also a twisted vocal sample delivered with even more sharpness. Lustig then uses drums to brood for the first time with a very high level of expertise.
“Mukulu” by Olamide & Rema
This is a much more full composition in the Afrobeats space that is also rooted in a four on the floor tempo. There is also a return of the guitar loop, thus Lustig is bringing back old elements to fuse with new ones he’s getting a better grip on. There is also a cool transition at about 50 seconds in, which makes the track more full and hazy showing proven ascension within Lustig’s electronic music ability.
“No. 1” by Tyla feat. Tems
An essential song on an essential album this year was spearheaded by Lustig’s production. The first collaboration from the two most prominent female African artists was woven together by his hand. You can hear a lot of Naomi Sharon adjacent sonic elements in the rounding out of the instrumental which makes you wonder if it was a leftover from those sessions. Still, it is such a strong composition it would be wild if she passed on it. The thing that helps the track fuse Tyla and Tems’ individual styles is the pristine arrangement blended with inherent depth in the tonality, a Lustig specialty.
Now back to our main programming. Lustig had a unique entry point into his work with OVO. Baka Not Nice is Drake’s ex-security guard and confidant who went to jail in 2015 after pleading guilty to an assault charge (as mentioned by Lamar in “Not Like Us”). In 2017, after release, he dropped his first official OVO single “Live Up To My Name” produced by Lustig. The song is a slap incomparable to anything else in Lustig’s catalog. It feels like he got an opportunity to level up his affiliation and executed expertly even though it wasn’t exactly in his wheelhouse.
That link up would not develop into anything else of significance until Patrynextdoor’s fourth album PARTYMOBILE in 2020. This is when the potential really started to show. The OVO, and in turn Toronto sound Drake and 40 procured, has a lot of relation to the gray chill of the weather. The sonics on R&B leaning tracks, due to that influence, are both synth heavy and shimmery much like the misty fog you see in photos of the city’s skyline. Both tracks Lustig produced on the Party album, “SPLIT DECISION” and “NEVER AGAIN,” are rooted in this quality. Lustig even proved his range within the OVO sonic sphere due to the track’s differing drum patterns.
Lustig’s first track he produced for Drake, “N 2 Deep,” is a top 3 song to me from his 2021 album Certified Lover Boy. The song has five producers, but Lustig is the first listed. The song feels like a proving ground for Lustig to prove his worth to the labelhead. It, again, doesn’t quite resemble any of his other catalog much like the Baka record, but spurs a contribution after that does align exactly with the Lustig core sound.
Drake took a hard left turn in 2022 in releasing an EDM/Club Music centered project in Honestly, Nevermind. The four on the floor pocket featured is one that Lustig was all too familiar and comfortable with. He became the perfect vessel for Drake to experiment through on some of the deeper cuts from the album. Lustig produced four tracks: “Flight’s Booked,” “Falling Back,” “Calling My Name,” and “Overdrive.” He used his vocal sample maneuvering, proclivity in shimmery shakers weaving around bouncy synths, and even his knack for guitar loops over pulsing rhythms, to display his unending worth to the OVO sound. He caught Drake in his emotional club energy right when he needed someone to mold a forward leaning sonic haze.
Lustig stayed in his pattern of arranging an out of pocket gem before finding symmetry as he produced “Moderation” for OVO weirdo Smiley and then immediately made his best song with Drake yet in “7969 Santa” off of 2023’s For All The Dogs. That song isn’t necessarily more essential than his four songs with Drake prior, but it contains equal parts of Lustig and Drake’s natural pockets for the first time. The clouded rumination on Drake’s time at Delilah, a lounge on Santa Monica Blvd in LA, has equal parts leaned back Drake lyrical musings and moody Alex Lustig sequences. This song, representing a culmination of Lustig’s work thus far, launched the producer into his momentous run with Naomi Sharon and PARTYNEXTDOOR featuring 18 tracks of sheer virtue.
Obsidian is a masterclass in world building. When you hear how the guitar folds in with Sharon’s voice on “Regardless” and “Myrhh” you know that only Lustig could’ve crafted that beautiful melancholy via his history of gloomy guitar loops. When you hear the misty lakeside quality of the synths on “Another Life,” “Definition of Love,” and “Extacy” you know only Lustig could have procured that dreamstate. Then, of course, Lustig’s four on the floor proficiency lifts Sharon to rapture on “Time and Trust,” “If This Is Love,” and “Holding in Place.”
PARTYNEXTDOOR 4 is the crooner’s best album yet because it never strays too far from its throughline: Party’s psyche two stepping through musical shadows. Lustig most likely curated that exact murkiness. The album’s best example of this central theme is “Stuck In My Ways,” which also happens to be produced by Lustig and my favorite track. It features a looped winding vocal sample, protruding synths, and a steadily gloomy rhythm. Shocker.
Inside The Credits 019: Alex Lustig- The Playlists