Behind the Boards is a series where we spotlight some of the biggest producers in the industry and dig into some of their favorite projects. For this edition, we sit down with producer Carter Lang to hear about his work with SZA, Omar Apollo, and more.
Before it’s a hit, before it’s a song, it’s probably a patchwork of ideas that may never come together. But when the pieces fall in place, it becomes, as Carter Lang puts it, “a thing.”
The songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist behind hits from SZA, Post Malone, Doja Cat, and Chance the Rapper, may not have the exact terminology to describe this feeling. But becoming a “thing” means that the song is taking on a life of its own. In our conversation singling out five standout productions from his career, Lang notes the various times in which those five songs transformed from looped rhythms and demos to something more.
Lang began his music career in Chicago, often working with the hip-hop collective Savemoney, which featured 2010s Chicago rap mainstays Vic Mensa, Chance the Rapper, Joey Purp, and more. After meeting a burgeoning SZA in 2015, Lang contributed to her 2017 debut Ctrl; his hip-hop background and guitar prowess was a perfect fit for SZA’s free-form style, and Lang once again contributed several tracks on her stunning follow-up, SOS.
After Ctrl, Lang continued to develop his repertoire by working with dozens of pop, R&B, and rap artists, even contributing production to a 5 Seconds of Summer track and songs from last year’s Lykke Li album. Another high arrived with the release of Post Malone and Swae Lee’s “Sunflower,” a chart-topping hit that emerged from a simple drum pattern Lang developed in Chicago. According to Lang, he had no idea that the song would end up in the 2018 film Spider Man: Into the Spider Verse: “I didn’t realize how big a part of the movie it was because I was trying not to accept the accomplishment, like, ‘Ah, it’s in the movie. I’ll see it someday,'” Lang says. “And then I saw it way late, and I was like, ‘No way. This is the movie.'”
Now that SZA’s SOS is finally out in the world, Lang has been gearing up for another influx of sessions at his Los Angeles studio — and investing in some new guitars and recording equipment while he’s at it. “I love to research,” he tells Consequence, “then the research turns into acquisition, and the acquisition turns into creation, which turns into elation.” It’s safe to say that when Lang enters the studio, either with an artist or alone, he’s never too far from a special creation.
Read our deep dive with Carter Lang about the process behind SZA’s “Kill Bill,” “Love Galore,” and more below.
