T-Minus, is a Canadian hip-hop & r&b producer from Toronto, Ontario. He has produced for artists such as T.I., Ciara, Nicki Minaj, Plies, Ludacris, LeToya Luckett, Birdman and Drake, among others.He is one of Canada’s brightest producers and one of many Canadians to break into the industry over the years. He was notably on hiatus from producing secular music from 2013-2016, though his older beats were put to use sporadically until he returned to the music scene in 2017after constant hummers of his retirement, he came back and produced music for artist like Drake, Bryson Tiller and PARTYNEXTDOOR. 

In a MTV interview T-minus talks about his new beats for drake, ”

MTV: Fair enough. You recently tweeted that your new beats are on another level which Drake quickly retweeted. So logically, your new beats for him are on another level. How so?

T-Minus: I’m just taking things to a new place as far as music goes. I don’t want to go to the same route that I was going to before so far as how everything sounds, how everything sits in your ears. It’s a producer thing. You’ll hear it when you hear it. I’m going back to the roots of R&B, mid-’90s, from hearing a Timbaland record, an Aaliyah, something from Blackground Music, for example. When the music had so much emotion. Nowadays, I feel like music is just so hard; all it is is just a bunch of bass. I want to take it to a place where it’s very musical but still has something that knocks.

Williams first started experimenting with music as a student at Pickering High School. “I’ve always loved music,” he says. “I used to play the drums, so I’ve always been interested in music in that way.” After sitting at the drum kit for a few years, he decided to try making his own rhythms, so he downloaded a digital audio workstation program called Fruity Loops when he was 15 years old and was soon creating entire songs. His talent spans genres – while most of his placements have been for hard-hitting hip hop artists, he also creates smooth R&B beats for the likes of Letoya Luckett (one of the founding members of Destiny’s Child and now a solo artist), catchy up-tempo tracks for a variety of styles, and pop rock for Stereos, the winners of the first season of MuchMusic’s reality TV competition DisBAND. This is a quote from Blackink Magazine.

In an interview with Deconstructed at around 01:20~ talking about the making of the beat from the Drake song ‘Blem’. T says, “A lot of people know me for coming up with lead melodies, thats like a big part of my sound”.

When asked to describe himself against other OVO Sound members (40 & Boi-1da) in HipHopDX, T-minus had this to say, “We all have our own styles. 40’s sound is very lush and somber, he has a lot of R&B influence in his music. Boi-1da’s stuff is crazy knock, it hits so hard. There’s so much percussive presence in his record. I feel like I brought a mixture of both in some sense. I’m strongly influenced by Boi-1da’s sound; we grew up together, and he’s definitely been a big influence on me as a producer. We share a lot of sounds from producing together. I brought a little bit more melody to the records I do.” 

in another Deconstructed interview 01:29~  where he is talking about the making of Drake’s song The Motto, He says, “We actually share sounds, We actually share all of our sounds, we have this producer names Jazzyfeezy, He used to collect a lot of sounds for us and we’d all kind of, between the three of us (40, T-minus & Boi-1da), we’d all share all the same sounds. 

 

References:

The Making of Drake’s “The Motto”: http://www.beatmakingvideos.com/Video/making-drakes-motto-t-minus-deconstructed-t-minus-beat-making-composedThe Making of Drake’s “The Motto” With T-Minus | Deconstructed

T-Minus discusses his inspiration, producing on Take Care, creative process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iX6Nl2OJ94&t=429s

BlackInk Magazine: http://blackinkmagazine.com/tag/t-minus/

MTV: http://www.mtv.com/news/2697303/t-minus-partynauseous-drake/

Videos on T-minus – http://www.beatmakingvideos.com/Producer/t-minus

Producer T-Minus Break Down The Beat For Drake’s “Blem”: https://www.hotnewhiphop.com/watch-toronto-producer-t-minus-break-down-the-beat-for-drakes-blem-news.31139.html#slide756351

HipHopDX: https://hiphopdx.com/interviews/id.1804/title.producers-corner-t-minus-explains-working-with-drake-from-comeback-season-to-take-care