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The Kickdrums may be hip-hop’s next big beatmakers. And they work out of a closet in Avon

By Gus Garcia-Roberts 

“When Death Becomes You” by M.O.P. ft. 50 Cent (Produced by the Kickdrums):

In 2004, 50 Cent was sitting in a trailer in Toronto, waiting for filming to resume on his biopic, Get Rich or Die Tryin'. It was the height of 50's popularity: Not only was he starring in the movie; he also was charged with creating its soundtrack. So as he waited, his sound engineer, Ky Miller, began cueing up CDs — hip-hop beats sent to 50's label from hopeful producers around the country.

With more than 400 beats to choose from, 50 devoted only a few seconds to each before signaling for the next. But about four minutes in, Miller played a track that sent 50's head rocking. It featured overpowering drums and a gruesomely symphonic melody, and the production was sonically "dirty"— gritty with almost imperceptible recording flaws. The rapper hit Miller with "the gas face," a flabbergasted grimace you might make stepping into a foul-smelling elevator. From 50, this expression is the highest praise, and it telegraphed to Miller that the search for this session's beat was complete.

"With 50, you automatically know if he's feeling something or not," says Miller. "When he picks up a pen and a pad, that's it."

50 penned a hook he'd been saving for such a beat — a poetic ode to "niggas that murk you/come to your tombstone and piss in your grave." He recorded it later that day, and Miller FedExed the work to New York, where the angry rap outfit M.O.P. added verses. The end result, a jarring track called "When Death Becomes You," was vintage 50: smug, abrasive, and disturbingly satisfying.

By then, the custom of producers boarding planes to work in-studio with rappers had waned, replaced by FedExed and e-mailed MP3s. So as it turned out, the producers of 50's new favorite beat didn't learn that their creation had been chosen until a Columbia Records insider phoned Matt Penttila, half of a Cleveland-based production team called the Kickdrums, and told him the news.

"Working with 50 changed our lives," says the other Kickdrum, Alex Fitts.

For the beat, Fitts and Penttila, just 23 at the time, were cut a check for $10,000. It was their first major "placement" — industry-speak for a beat purchased by a major label. They knew the moment was pivotal.

"Once you do get that placement, you have about a year to come up with a hit single," says Fitts. "After a year, newer producers start coming in, and the industry's like, 'OK, here are the new kids on the block.'"

More than two years later, the Kickdrums haven't achieved that hit single. Their placements have been non-singles for rappers like Papoose, Yung Joc, and Chamillionaire. Fitts and Penttila estimate their annual earnings at $40,000 to 50,000 each — the price of one beat for an elite producer. Which explains why their studio is a converted den in Fitts' apartment in Avon.

But in those two years, they've managed to stay relevant, logging hours in that den — often up to a hundred a week — pumping out new material, working with local artists, and mastering genre-blurring production that has generated buzz among music insiders. They're enticingly close to the breakthrough. Harlem phenom Juelz Santana is rumored to have tapped a few tracks for his next project, and Houston legend Scarface recently called Penttila about working on his next album. Despite the four-year lull since their brush with 50 and fame, they're still considered up-and-comers.

Says Leo G, program director at XM hip-hop station, 66 Raw: "I definitely think they're the next to blow."

“Killa Flow” by Ray Cash (Produced by the Kickdrums):

The Hunter's Chase Apartments, a few blocks from the artificial village of Crocker Park, are home to yuppies on a budget. Slumbering under snow the day after a February blizzard, the labyrinthine complex resembles a ski lodge, with blond kids in snowshoes lumbering through the cul-de-sac.

This, of all places, is the capital of Cleveland street rap.

In Fitts and his fiancée's sparse one-bedroom, the Kickdrums have used $20,000 in sound equipment to turn a small den into a professional-grade studio. A nearby closet serves as the microphone booth, soundproofed by bunched sheets. A bag of golf clubs rests against a dingy couch, which has been crushed shapeless by the asses of countless rappers, managers, and hangers-on. Nino, an English bulldog, prods visitors for snacks.

The Kickdrums seem like pals you might make at college. Fitts, 26, wears torn jeans and clunky skater shoes, and hides thick pumpkin-hued hair under a Lacoste skullcap. He's thoughtful and quiet, unless you get him onto the topics of ancient Rome or Impressionist art. Penttila, 25, is the group's boisterous self-promoter. (Every hip-hop duo needs one.) He's the guy who texts women while driving and speaks in an Ebonic twang, despite being raised in Chardon. Both love chess and swear by the philosophies of one book: The Teachings of Don Juan, by Carlos Castaneda — the chronicles of a man exploring spirituality via peyote tripping. "This is something I learned from my grandma," says Fitts, as he digs Don Juan out of the microphone booth and hands it over. "You should never keep a book; you should always give them away."

They aren't who you would suspect are behind the popular crack rap that pounds from the mixtape CDs being slung on East 99th. C.J., however, is.

The muscle-bound rapper arrives at the apartment four hours late, trailed by his seven-year-old son and his manager, all carrying steaming bags of Wendy's. C.J.'s arms are covered in tattoos. A motorcycle chain connects his wallet to a belt loop on his tan Dickies.

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