“It was like six in the morning…”: How Ian James produced the beat for Doechii’s Denial Is A RiverThis year, Doechii’s Alligator Bites Never Heal was crowned Best Rap Album at the 67th Annual Grammy Awards. The mixtape also saw Doechii herself being nominated for Best New Artist, as well as Nissan Altima earning a nomination nod for Best Rap Performance. However, Denial Is A River has proven to be the stand-out track of the bunch, amassing over 132 million streams on Spotify at the time of writing.
Back in October, producer Ian James took to YouTube to explain how he coined the track’s beat. Inspired by the sound of MF DOOM, James’ first version of the beat was created in 2022 by fluke. It was a last-minute panic, pieced together just to upload something for his followers. “It was like 6:00 in the morning… I’m scrambling through my record collection, trying to find drum breaks to chop up, trying to find samples,” he recalled.

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He’d set himself a goal to post a new beat every day, and he’d realised he’d forgotten to make something that day. Luckily, he came across a vinyl of Paul Nice’s 5 Fingers Of Death. “I was going through it, and I was like ‘ooo, this has some drums, this has some a sample I can chop up,” he said. “So, I’m making the beat… and I’m super tired. [Eventually,] I’m like man, this beat’s not finished, but I’m just kind of stuck.”

The original beat is called MF DOOM Type Beat – Golden, and can still be found on his YouTube. Despite James not being fully satisfied, it gained traction online. With thousands of people loving the beat, James felt like he was on to a winner. “So, I pitched it around!” he explained.
Walking through the beat, he explains that the original beat was created from a single stab from a sample. Unfortunately, label didn’t have much time to clear the original sample – but it was a quick fix, as James just tweaked one chord. “Luckily, all I had to do was replay one chord and then just pitch it back around!” he said.

Elsewhere, he points out more Paul Nice samples – like the opening vocal snippet of “hey, I thought it was all over.” There’s also another vocal chop right as the beat drops to heighten the “impact”, in James’ words, as well as scratch splices, horn samples, and vocals with added delay.
Throughout, James is adamant that the beat is “simple.” Besides the samples, there’s kick drums, snares and hi-hats, and a simple bassline. “You don’t need to do anything crazy!” he insisted. “You don’t have to have all these layers, it just has to have a vibe… don’t overthink it.”

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