NEXT: Lex Luger

WHAT WE SAY:
Lex Luger wasn’t always making major noise. Two years ago, the once asocial producer, now 19, was secretly cooking up beats on his PlayStation 2 Music Generator. To help break out of his shell, the Suffolk, Va., native, whose father taught him to play drums at age 9, expressed emotions through his MPC. Dropping out of King’s Fork High School, Luger fulfilled his need to be heard on a much bigger level when Atlanta trapper Waka Flocka Flame found his menacing  instrumentals stuffed in his MySpace inbox in 2009, an alliance that birthed Waka’s sinister anthem “Hard in the Paint.” Having peddled monstrous tracks to Rick Ross (“B.M.F.,” “MC Hammer”) and co-produced Kanye West’s “Mama’s Boyfriend,” Luger is now crafting beats that make other people speechless.

WHAT HE SAYS:
“I was the quiet kid [in school]. I wanted to speak through my music. You have so many emotions throughout the day, and I don’t know how to let them out. I love the way I can make nothing—just one little drum sample—into one of the biggest records ever. Right now, people just know the angry Lex Luger. I might be mad and make a beat like “B.M.F.” or “MC Hammer”—the trap beats— but right after I’ll make something soulful. [My music] is an escape. I can get away, do what I do best and hush other people’s mouths.” —J.K.

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