Metro Boomin says he wants to shine light on the talent in his native city, St. Louis

On March 4, Metro Boomin is heading to the City Block Party in St. Louis to headline a DJ set alongside Anderson .Paak. The event will celebrate the addition of a new sports team to the city, which is the producer’s home city. In fact, the event’s location was part of the allure.

“Because of St. Louis, more than anything, me being born and raised there and always looking for great opportunities and the right opportunities to bring awareness and shine more light on the city,” he tells Uproxx. “Definitely excited to be a part of this. This is big. This is historic. St. Louis getting a soccer club, that’s major. I’m just grateful that they even reached out and I jumped at the opportunity.”

He says he may “hopefully” get season tickets, as he plans “on just getting as involved with the club as I can.”

Metro is often associated with Atlanta, his “second home.” He “grew up there as a man,” he says, and came up in the music scene collaborating with “a lot of prominent Atlanta artists.” But now he’s hoping to shine “a light on St. Louis talent because there’s just so much of it.”

The city’s musical sound, he says, “is, more than anything, soul.”

“We put feel in. It’s no gimmicks in our music,” he says, noting his “dynamic” production “comes from just growing up in St. Louis.” Being in the Midwest, he adds, means he consumed music from the East Coast, West Coast and the South.

“Through the way music traveled, I feel in the middle, we was just catching everything,” he says. “And I feel like that has a big impact on my sound as well as just everybody in St. Louis because we all come up just listening to everything.”

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