Before sitting down for an interview on a recent afternoon, BNYX insisted on a tour of his Hollywood studio to highlight all the carefully curated items he’s procured for his workspace. The multi-platinum producer, known for his work with Yeat, Drake, and Travis Scott, lit up speaking about his Etsy-found collapsible metal shelf frame complete with Home Depot slabs of wood, his faux cement wall brought in from Miami, his intentionally placed skylights in each room so he can “know the time of day,” and his custom sound proofing panels wrapped in distinct prints by his artist friend Gabriel Rozzell.
BNYX’s curatorial instinct results in a distinct arrangement of sound and style on his upcoming debut producer compilation, “Genesis FM.” European dance music rhythms collide with contemporary hip-hop deliveries and progressive metal bass undertones as if they were always meant to coalesce. There were many lightbulb moments which led to the BNYX fusion sound—a Gesaffelstein live show where he was shown the freedom of industrial techno; progressive metal he heard growing up on Comcast On Demand; noticing how early Migos flows fit within his dance rhythms. a Most importantly, he was inspired by the effect of his double time drums on Drake, SZA, and Sexxy Red’s “Rich Baby Daddy.”
“When Drake first played it for me, it was just a half-time beat,” BNYX told the Times, “I took off the drums that Gordo (another Drake producer) did and re-arranged the hook. I felt like it should be this uptempo Miami bass thing. A lot of my album came from working on that record.”
Though BNYX is now a one-man band, Benjamin Saint Fort grew up in a Haitian church family band curated by his father in Philadelphia. He paid for strict lessons in musicianship for Ben and his siblings to train them, which included a teacher who’d slap knuckles due to wrong notes played.
“I think he had an agenda, like, ‘Now I can have little producers,’” BNYX said. “I loved it when he got off work on the weekends. We would spend time either cutting grass, doing plumbing, putting on drywall, or playing music in church.”
The producer grew up playing mostly play bass, with his other siblings on guitar and percussion, and his father on keys. But the group would also rotate based on specific sounds his father wanted to achieve. They traveled on Sundays to various churches, both American Christian and Haitian Christian, shifting the sound to cater to different sensibilities.
“He would speak Creole over the top of American gospel,” BNYX said. explained. “But also take an American gospel song and mix it with a Konpa (traditional Haitian genre) beat and sing the lyrics in French.”
This left-of-center fusion approach by his father seemed to be the initial catalyst for BNYX’s curiosity. Once he found his family’s Comcast On Demand feature, he channeled that energy into the strange power of progressive metal. “The first group that came up when I went under the metal section was called Dragon Force,” he recalled excitedly. “Imagine you’re like 12 or 13 and you see this Asian dude just ripping at these insane speeds!” That was 2007/2008.
Fast forward to 2019. A now more formed musician, BNYX had gone through a lot. He was introduced to hip-hop by his older half-brother Felix, had a failed stint at art school, worked at AT&T and started making music on the side, repeatedly traveled between Philly and LA trying to make it, and crafted YouTube tutorials as a means to sell drum kits.
Yet what was missing was a vessel for creating his alternative sounds. Then BNYX crossed paths with the prodigal UK underground eccentric, Lancey Foux. He sent, per request, 100 beats, which turned into an in-studio link-up. “Lancey was tall , body wide, lanky as hell,” BNYX described about the figure before him. “He started talking mad deeply. I was thinking, ‘This is a real artist, he’s strangely curious like me.’ He said he listened to all 100 beats and everything was crazy.” These beats included the stranger instrumentals that, to this point, BNYX had mostly kept hidden. He’d found a band member whom he’s now worked with for eight years on tracks including the nuclear “OUTTAMYMIND!” feat. Lil Yachty. Their initial spark proved to BNYX that the sounds he really wanted to make had potential.
The other most prominent otherworldly collaborator of BNYX’s is Yeat, whom he’d meet a few years later on a Discord channel. Upon first listen, BNYX couldn’t believe his ears. “I was like this guy’s next!” BNYX recalled with enthusiasm. “Everyone I played his music for didn’t understand it. I’m like, ‘Bro, I don’t know what he’s saying either, but do you hear these melodies, this pocket, and how he’s layering it with the beat and the synths?!’” He checked his DM’s and realized Yeat had already reached out due to his work with Foux. The first song they made was “Tonka 2,” which sounds like a flying saucer beaming up an alien in sonic form.
“Every time I sent something, my goal was to elevate,” BNYX said about his continued musical curation with Yeat. “Whether I was sending nu metal s—, weird dance s—, or a funny Nickelodeon beat, each time he geeked out.” The duo rose to prominence together, even as the music sounded more and more like it was lost in a vortex.
“Yeat really changed my life,” BNYX said. “Without meeting him, I would not have been able to express myself the way I do now when I work with others.”
Alongside the duo’s elevation, the raging crowds for Yeat’s live shows became both electric and chaotic. They were filled with young men letting off steam to his and BNYX’s songs, which aligned with their desire for escapist sounds to get lost in. BNYX was satisfied with the movement he’d helped craft a sound for, but then, his atomic rise brought him to Drake.
BNYX got called in by 40, Drake’s longtime producer, to come out to Houston to add arrangements for his “It’s All A Blur” tour. Naturally, BNYX’s curation stood out. Drake asked him to stay for another week to help him finish his album “For All The Dogs.” A week turned into three months, recording on planes and in hotel rooms. “That time period was so crazy, being on Air Drake three times a week, eating spaghetti on a f—ing plane,” BNYX recalled. ” What BNYX took away from the tour, though, was much more impactful. “After seeing the crowd that Drake brought in, an all-female crowd, I said to Yeat, ‘You need this,” he recalled. “I wanted to cater Yeat’s sound to everyone with strong singalong hooks and spacing. Drake treats every rap song like it’s a pop song; he wants perfection.”
The Drake tour experience led to an eventual epiphany in the form of another of Yeat and BNYX’s biggest songs to date, 2025’s “COMË N GO.” During our interview, BNYX played the earliest version of the record, which was just a freestyle over a loop. Slowly but surely, he broke down picking the hook, separating verses using slick spacing, and adding layers of intricately placed sounds. It’s the most pop-leaning solo track Yeat has ever released.
“This was the song that I knew was gonna take Yeat fans from Gen Z dudes to females,” BNYX proclaimed. “I knew I could go to the club and play it. After touring with Drake, I think the one thing I wanted was to get people to move.” There was also a lot of overlap with “COMË N GO” and BNYX’s dance music pivot. Around the same time, he went to the Gesafflestein techno show, which led to a parallel awakening. In response, he studied up on dance music and workshopped fusing the Miami bass of “Rich Baby Daddy” with French club tones, progressive metal bass, and modern hip-pop.
BNYX then had a cathartic moment with Quavo when he got him to rap his flow from his 2016 Migos song “Commando,” and it fit perfectly with his techno cadences on the second single of “Genesis FM’”, “HunchO STEP!.” This rap/industrial alignment careens throughout the album and is now a BNYX superpower. He flew to Atlanta to meet the melodic rapper in hopes he’d be down to experiment. “I was like, ‘Quavo, I got this beat. It’s a little bit different, but do you remember the “Commando” song? I want that flow on this, please,’” BNYX recalled. “He’s like, “Okay, give me two hours.” I’m in the living room with his homie, playing NBA 2 K, nervous. He called me back to the studio, played the song, and I almost cried. That was the first song officially recorded on this version of the album.”
Then BNYX brought in a slew of other distinct vocalists to further elevate and solidify the core sound, from Kid Cudi to Don Toliver. Yet, none were more potent than his original comrade, Foux. BNYX knew he could execute a dark monotone delivery over heavy four on the floor, so he instructed him to do so on the album’s best song, “Squeeze.” The resulting track feels like being lost within the euphoria of an underground dance floor exemplified. Through this central record, BNYX cemented the sound of his one man band.
But what about his own family band? BNYX is now raising two daughters with his wife in LA. “I’m gonna just let them do what they want to do. But they do love music,” he said with a joyous grin. “My wife is always giving me new ideas and putting me on to new music like Pakistani and German dance stuff that I’m experimenting with. As for my daughters, they’re only five and three, but they make beats. I’m gonna play you one song…” The proud father proceeded to play a bright Baltimore/Jersey club record with a chopped vocal sample booming through his studio speakers as the sunlight shone through his skylight down upon him.
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