Boi-1da

• 1. Introduction

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  Boi-1da, born Matthew Jehu Samuels on the 12th of October 1986, grew up in Toronto neighbourhoods shaped by Jamaican sound culture. His father's devotion to dancehall music filled their home with air horns and riddims long before hip-hop entered the picture. That early immersion would eventually colour some of the biggest records of the 21st century. The questions worth asking: how does a kid from Kingston, raised in Scarborough and Ajax, end up producing number-one hits for Eminem and Rihanna? And what does it mean to carry a distinctly Jamaican sound into the heart of North American rap?

• 2. Kingston to Scarborough

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  Samuels was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and moved to Canada at age three. He grew up in the North York and Scarborough districts of Toronto, and also spent time in Ajax, Ontario, where he attended Pickering High School. His father's taste in dancehall music was not casual listening; it was the sonic environment of the household. When Samuels was eight, his mother bought him a Casio keyboard. At fifteen, a friend named Arun Sellai introduced him to FL Studio, at the time still known as FruityLoops. He had no formal musical training. He simply sat down with the software and taught himself to build beats. Within a few years, he had won three consecutive Battle of the Beatmakers championships, an achievement unusual enough that the organizers invited him onto the judging panel.

• 3. Early Drake and First Breaks

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  Samuels was eighteen years old when he first worked professionally, contributing to two tracks on Drake's mixtape Room for Improvement. That debut turned into a sustained working relationship. He went on to produce for Drake's Comeback Season in 2007. In 2008, he produced "Set It Off" for Canadian rapper Kardinal Offishall, a track that featured the rap duo Clipse and generated enough attention that Dr. Dre recorded a remix. Around that same time, Boi-1da revealed in an interview with FLOW 93.5 that he was producing beats for Dr. Dre's long-anticipated album Detox, slated for 2011. That project was shelved indefinitely, and none of the material that surfaced from it carried his credit. He pivoted to other collaborations, including work with songwriter Sean Garrett and submissions for Usher.

• 4. Climbing the Charts

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  In 2010, Boi-1da produced "Not Afraid" by Eminem, which became the first song he crafted to reach the top of the US Billboard Hot 100. That same year he produced "hahahaha jk?" for Das Racist's debut album Sit Down, Man. He produced a bulk of Drake's second album, Take Care, released on the 15th of November 2011. In March 2013, he delivered "5AM in Toronto" for Drake, a track that spent years in circulation before officially landing on Drake's 2019 compilation Care Package. In January 2016, Rihanna released the dancehall track "Work" featuring Drake. That song reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, making it the second Boi-1da production to top the chart. The ASCAP Pop Music Awards had recognised his contributions earlier, in 2011, when Drake presented him and Noah "40" Shebib the Songwriters of the Year award for "Over".

• 5. The Dancehall Thread

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  Between 2016 and 2017, Boi-1da leaned further into his Jamaican roots, producing a run of dancehall-influenced tracks including Drake's "Controlla", Tyga's "1 of 1", PartyNextDoor's "Only U", and Nicki Minaj's "Regret in Your Tears". His sound is built around live instrumentation and the air horn effect typical of dancehall and reggae. He names Dr. Dre, Swizz Beatz, Timbaland, and The Neptunes as influences, though the dancehall tradition clearly runs deeper than any of them. He has spoken out against artists who imitate that sound without grounding in it, criticising Toronto musician Tory Lanez for his 2016 single "Luv". He continues to build his beats in FL Studio, currently using version 12, having progressed from FruityLoops 3.56 through versions 7 XL and 9.

• 6. A Decade of Major Records

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  In January 2018, Boi-1da produced "God's Plan" for Drake. That track earned Grammy nominations for Song of the Year and Best Rap Song in 2019. He also produced "Lucky You" by Eminem featuring Joyner Lucas that August. In October 2020, he produced "Tyler Herro" for Jack Harlow. The Grammy Awards have nominated him fourteen times across various categories; he holds one win. He also produced the 2016 Kanye West single "Real Friends", and in September 2017 delivered "No Limit" by G-Eazy featuring A$AP Rocky and Cardi B. In 2015, Drake tapped him to serve as executive producer for the mixtape If You're Reading This It's Too Late. He is listed as a member of Drake's October's Very Own alongside Noah "40" Shebib and T-Minus, a recognition of how central he became to that creative circle.

• 7. Health, Politics, and What Comes Next

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  In late 2020, Samuels contracted COVID-19. He had previously said publicly that he would not take any vaccine for the virus. Looking back in 2025, he described the illness as leaving him bedridden for weeks and said he felt "half-dead" during that period. In the lead-up to the 2025 Canadian federal election, he criticised Liberal politicians Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney and endorsed Pierre Poilievre for Prime Minister. In March 2026, Samuels announced a new album called Perfect Pitch, first teased through a partnership with the Canadian Soccer Association tied to the 2026 FIFA World Cup in Canada. On the 10th of April 2026, he released "Electric Circus", a collaborative single with Nelly Furtado and Canada Soccer; it debuted at number 35 on the Canada CHR/Top 40 chart.