Hitmaker of the Month: How Johan Lenox Brings a Classical Music Background to Metro Boomin’s ‘Creepin” and Other Essential Hip-Hop Tracks
A.D. Amorosi Johan Lenox, Variety’s Hitmaker of the Month, is known for the supple grandeur he brings to different projects as a producer, arranger and/or composer. These range from the sublime, stringed swell of “Creepin’,” Metro Boomin’s current top 10 smash with the Weeknd and 21 Savage, to the epic orchestral and choral arrangements of Travis Scott’s “Astroworld” and Nas’ “Nasir” (both produced by Mike Dean), and tracks for Selena Gomez, Shawn Mendes and Machine Gun Kelly. Lenox’s background is as a classical music prodigy (by 18, his compositions were heard at Boston’s Symphony Hall and New York’s Alice Tully Hall) and as a musical theater composer (his 2012 off-Broadway musical “Independents” was named a New York Times Critic’s Pick). But he exists in his own lane, one that’s expanded greatly with the release of solo projects such as his 2022 chamber-pop-hop vocal album debut, “WDYWTBWYGU.”