Ty Dolla $ign: Photos From the Billboard Cover Shoot

You won’t see Ty Dolla $ign’s name in the production credits for Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us.” But without him, the song that this spring put an exclamation point on Lamar’s long-­simmering beef with Drake — a jovial but menacing track primarily produced by Mustard, built around a pulsating set of strings — might very well not exist.

Long before Mustard became the top purveyor of Cali bounce, he was a friend and student of Ty’s. They both rolled with a crew called Pu$haz Ink that included artists across disciplines — rappers, singers, graffiti artists, producers and even a few gangsters for good measure. As part of the group’s in-house production squad, Ty would host the crew at his home while he cooked up beats for them. And while he toiled away, the young DJ Mustard steadily documented everything he saw, clocking Ty’s every move to see just how the magic was made. One night, the crew was having a party at a house in Los Angeles’ Baldwin Hills neighborhood when Mustard played the song “Scotty” by Atlanta snap group D4L; Ty still remembers how everyone went crazy and started dancing. He was blown away by the beat’s simplicity, which reminded him of the jerk music then growing in popularity in California.

The next morning, still inspired, Ty started making some new beats. One of his production partners, Chordz, gave him a record to sample that Ty slowed down and pitched perfectly to accentuate the 808s, hi-hat, a snare and a piano sound. The beat became “Toot It & Boot It,” the 2010 debut single for Ty’s Pu$haz Ink peer, the rapper YG — and Ty’s first hit record. But, more importantly, the beat laid the foundation for what became the de facto sound of the West Coast for the next decade, one that Mustard perfected and made his own.

Read the full Billboard Ty Dolla $ign cover story here.