Lunchbox, the 18-year-old producer behind much of Sheck Wes’ Mudboy, is mildly annoyed that his mom has called to check in on him while he’s in the middle of our interview. “Yo, mom, I’m with Pitchfork, I’m on the record and all that right now.” It’s a reminder that the beat-making architect of one of the year’s most exciting projects—rapper Sheck Wes’ album Mudboy—is just a teenager.

I meet Lunchbox in his native Harlem at a friend’s apartment, right off of the iconic Lenox Avenue—where Harlem royalty like Cam’ron, Jim Jones, and Max B based their hood tales. He’s all smiles as he answers the door rocking Retro Thunder Jordan 4s on his feet, sagging black Nike sweatpants, and his signature black Carhartt hoodie. After greeting me, he walks me to the apartment’s far bedroom and we sit on outdoor lawn chairs beside a black and gray cat sniffing at the smoke filled room. Lunchbox beams as he explains that since Mudboy dropped days before, record labels have been calling nonstop. The producer credits his hardscrabble Harlem upbringing with building the homegrown sound that sets the tone for the album.

Harlem means a lot to Lunchbox and his sound. The storied Manhattan neighborhood is its own world, a mesh of African, Caribbean, and black American cultures and a hotbed of creative expression. Like the neighborhood itself, Lunchbox has always moved at a fast pace, making his beats on the go, never having a studio, just him and his Macbook. His production is haunting; made to echo the neighborhood’s dark side. It’s what connected him to Sheck Wes who, with Mudboy, used Lunchbox’s beats to tell the coming-of-age story of a kid that only wanted to make it out of the hood. When Sheck signed a deal to both Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. imprint and Travis Scott’s Cactus Jack under Interscope he could’ve loaded his album with production from the two producers or their stables, but opted to keep his sound homegrown. Lunchbox-produced tracks like “Live SheckWes Die SheckWes” and “WESPN” paint a picture of what it’s like to grow up in Harlem, while others like “Gmail” and “Fuck Everybody” capture the brooding attitude associated with the lively neighborhood. It’s a realness that has made Sheck into a bright spot for rap and shed a light on Lunchbox as a promising producer with his own unpolished sound. A few days after Mudboy’s release, he explained how it all came together.

Pitchfork: When did you first link with Sheck Wes?

Lunchbox: I met Sheck in the hood. I used to see him damn near every day. I remember seeing him just biking through the hood with his headphones on. One day, because we already knew each other, he hit me up on Facebook. Coming from New York, you gotta have Facebook. Everybody and everything’s on Facebook, I swear to god. But on there he was like, “Yo, I heard you make beats.” That’s how our relationship really started to build.

What was the first beat you made with Sheck?

“Live SheckWes Die SheckWes.” After he hit me on Facebook that’s the beat I sent him. He hit me back in March of 2016, like “Naw, I don’t want it no more.” Boom. He goes to Africa in the summer, and comes back, the first thing he does is drop “Live SheckWes.” And I’m like “Bro, what’s up? Where my money at?” And he just gave me like 50 bucks or whatever. Some light shit. But we in the hood bro, I needed that.

What’s your goal when you make a beat?

I always say this, but whenever I try to make a beat, I always think of it like a movie. I really want people to see shit when they hear it. I remember in school the teacher used to read out loud and I could picture it in my head. So why not do that with music?

It sounds like you’re scoring a horror movie.

Yeah, I be trying really make dark shit because, growing up bro, it was hard. Shit was never really happy. Growing up in Harlem is a battle. I’m from East Side, 115th, between 1st and Pleasant. In the hood, everybody wants to be better than each other, and everybody wants to top you, feel me?

So it never really was any good times. Until now obviously. Before, everything used to be bad. Niggas used to be getting killed and robbed, all types of stupid shit.

So your beats are made to replicate your Harlem surroundings?

I was really trying to give people a look into my world. Paint a picture.

There was some controversy behind Sheck’s “Mo Bamba” when producer Zedd said he thought the production was lacking music theory. What do you think of that? Do you use music theory?

I’m gonna be honest. I never really heard of bro [Zedd]. That shit is weird. I’ve never had no music theory class, or, none of that. It’s easier for me to break shit down in math. Like, four bars, eight bars. That’s why my beats sound the way they sound, because of the way they’re structured. I find a dark chord and go from there.

What was the idea behind Mudboy?

One day Sheck hit me up, and was like, “Yo that shit you’re making is fire, I’m trying to do some dark stuff like that.” And he was thinking about calling it MudBoy. And I said it was fire. But I didn’t think he was gonna really run with it, ’cause, if you know Sheck bro, it’s always ideas coming out of him. Like he is always like, “Yo, we should do this, or we should do that.” And he doesn’t listen to nobody but himself.

So the idea behind Mudboy was for it to capture the spirit of Harlem?

Yeah, it was really supposed to be about a “mud boy,” about the trials and tribulations of coming up in Harlem—going to Africa. His story is crazy. It’s about the trenches of Harlem. Shit ain’t sweet, this shit is dark, you feel me? That’s what I really be trying to bring to the table, and that’s what he brings to the table. ’Cause I could just send my beats to whoever the fuck, and they can just throw on some fucking Auto-Tune, and I’ll be copping a Benz. Or they can really get on that shit, and talk about what we and other people are really going through. There’s not that many people who can rap on my beats the way he does. Through that energy he brings out the same exact feeling that I want people to feel when I make the beat in the first place.

What do you think it is about Mudboy that has connected it to kids throughout New York?

It’s a feeling. Niggas who were really downtown stealing shit and going uptown to sell it to make bread. It's hard to find a mix of music that is saying stuff and makes you want to tee up. Sometimes he be saying shit, that just relates to niggas. He's really capturing niggas coming from the mud. Making a flower out of concrete. Real mud boy shit, real dark shit.