Bankroll Got It is the mysterious production group behind some of today’s hottest bangers.
Whether it’s Lil Gotit’s “Da Real HoodBabies” or Mulatto’s “b##ch From Da Souf,” they enter the rap game with unique, never-before-heard-of beats that artists can’t help but go off on.
Comprised of 3 blood brothers Joel Banks, Matthew Banks, and Taylor Banks, the trio are proud to leave their day jobs in order to pursue the music thing full-force.
While most people might think they’re from Atlanta (because of their heavy use of drums), they actually hail from the Bay Area.
In 2017, Bankroll Got It took home the trophy for 3rd Place at iStandard’s Beast of the Beats competition in Los Angeles. Since then, they’ve been growing their portfolio which includes working with artists Luh Kel, Stunna4Vegas, Queen Key, and many more.
Their strategy and work ethic is unmatched, doing whatever they need to do to get their fire beats in front of the right artists.
AllHipHop: How did you guys come together?
Joel Banks: We’ve always done music pretty much our whole lives. Me, I’ve had different situations in the past. They all didn’t work out as well. When our little brother started making beats and sent them to me just for feedback, I’m like “okay, maybe we’ll give it one more shot.” He got really good. Pretty soon, Taylor jumped on and we’d be flying to LA and New York. We hit it full-steam. It was the right combination with the family so it started working out. It’s a third time’s the charm kind of thing.
AllHipHop: What happened the first two times?
Joel Banks: Nothing, it wasn’t the right situation. It wasn’t the right time, I don’t think. It all connected together when the brothers came on board.
AllHipHop: Where were you guys working?
Taylor Banks: We basically had jobs to fund trips to LA. We’d book studio sessions Friday through Monday and try to get as many people as possible. We didn’t really know anyone in the industry so you can’t really get in without money. We had to make money to fund these trips. We’d go to Atlanta, New York, all these places to try and get in with these artists we’d be following.
Joel Banks: We’d start with conferences like A3C. Really our first established artist who helped us out was Asian Doll. We met her and Cuban way back at one of the conferences, walked up to them and tried to get their email. We started to work with Asian in Atlanta. When she got signed to Alamo, she helped us get in with Lil Gotit who we did the “HoodBabies” record with. Mulatto’s out of Atlanta, so we started working with her. Those 2 songs really built our sound that what we’re known for now.
AllHipHop: How’d you find out your sound?
Joel Banks: We were watching who either Asian was working with, or started taking notice of a lot of the young rappers and their other artists.
Taylor Banks: Watching Triller videos, like the “Woah.”
Joel Banks: Notice the sound. Artists like 10k.Caash, Tay Money, S3nsi Molly, a lot of Dallas artists we thought had an interesting sound. We created something that took a little bit of that, but really created our own more nightclub/stripclub music. That’s what worked for us.
Taylor Banks: We’ve always been a drum heavy producer, so those beats with barely any music were perfect for us. We’d come with the hardest drums we could think of, we’d put no music on it and it was a vibe that people liked.
Joel Banks: Which is why people think we’re from Atlanta because a lot of our artists come out of that area.
AllHipHop: Talk about being from the Bay, how does that play into your life/career?
Joel Banks: We’ve always been influenced by the Bay sound.
Taylor Banks: Just West Coast sound in general.
Joel Banks: Mainly because the drums are always so heavy. People ask us now why we don’t make Bay music… since we started working with Asian Doll, that’s why we do that sound. We still love West Coast music, but we haven’t done as much. Although now we’re working with a lot of West Coast artists, we’re trying to adapt our own way of doing some new West Coast sound.
AllHipHop: Where you guys were working?
Taylor Banks: We basically had full time career type jobs.
Joel Banks: Pretty much did a complete 180. I was in sales for an engineering company, but it taught me to realize you have to get in front of people. You have to be face-to-face. You can’t be sending emails because nobody opens them if they don’t know you. Learning sales and how to do that, we realize we have to fly to LA. The people we want to get to, we have to find a way to get in front of them. We’d fly to shows or if we knew they’re going to be at a certain event, we’d pull up just to meet them. We’d wait an hour to meet them.
Taylor Banks: We were pulling up on everyone.
Joel Banks: We’d check out the list of who’s performing on what night, we’d try to catch them after they perform. Usually start at up and coming artists because you could approach them. Trap Beckham, Pell, Jack Harlow, really anybody we’d notice.
AllHipHop: “b##ch From Da Souf” is a banger! How’d that come about?
Joel Banks: That’s a funny story. It’s so crazy that’s probably our biggest, well-known record. When it dropped, we didn’t even know. They didn’t even contact us.
Taylor Banks: We weren’t in the room when they recorded it.
Joel Banks: We previously did one song with Mulatto over email, so she didn’t know us. One day, our friend Chelsea (A&R at Columbia) hit us up “oh s##t, you guys did Mulatto’s new single.” We’re like “what?” We saw it, they never hit us up. At that time, our sound was developing. That was a popular beat that we’re shopping around. We’re like “crap, we have to hit them up.”
People were telling us to tell them to take it down. That’s never been our approach, we’ll figure it out. She was then signed to StreamCut, a really good company out of Atlanta. We call, they worked it out. We got payment for it. Ended up being our biggest record. A lot of producers would overreact and yell at them, tell them to take it down. We always try to approach it in a way where we’ll figure something out first. It ended up working out really well for us.
AllHipHop: What about Lil Gotit “DaReal HoodBabies,” was that in the studio?
Joel Banks: No, those first two were not. [chuckles] It was through our manager, Sean. At the time when Asian Doll’s album came out, we flew to New York. Release party was that night and we had to be there, so we flew a redeye. The next day, we pulled up and met the Alamo team. Sean was based in New York, so he kept in touch with them. He’d feed them beats.
Since we met them, they were interested in us. One night, Lil Gotit didn’t even want to do the beat because it was so different. His manager forced him to do it, that’s how they described it in the Genius video. It ended up being the one because it’s so different. I don’t think anybody would’ve killed it better than he did.
AllHipHop: Why don’t you like to show your identity/remaining anonymous?
Joel Banks: It started out as a branding thing. We want our name bigger than what we look like as producers. Now it’s turned into a funny situation where it’s almost exciting to the artists to figure out what we look like. It’s not that we’re ashamed, it’s just a good way to market ourselves. It’s really working out.
When people come to the session, they don’t know what we look like. It’s always a funny icebreaker, they’re like “who’s Bankroll Got It? Where they at?” I was in Atlanta, at a Rae Sremmurd event. We’re trying to get connected with Slim Jxmmi. I meet him and he’s actually more excited to see what we looked like, than for us to meet him. He’s super pumped about meeting us: “now I know what you look like!” So we’re keeping that going for a while.
AllHipHop: What do you each bring to the table?
Joel Banks: It’s a tag team effort. Taylor’s a little more musical so he gravitates to the melodic stuff, where I gravitate more to the hard club stuff. What we really bring to the table is working together as a team. Since we’re brothers, we work together so much better than somebody else because we understand each other. We can get into arguments and not take it personal because we know at the end of the day, we’re trying to do what’s best for business.
The biggest thing is both of us understanding what it took to actually make it in this industry. It’s not just sending emails and being really good at music, it’s more about relationships and being in front of people. Showing them a good time in the studio, doing good business, being polite. Letting something slide that most people wouldn’t. Taking small L’s for big wins.
Taylor Banks: We approach this whole thing like a business. We track every song that we make, that we cut. We track if a song’s probably going to make someone’s album, when it makes the album, if we’ve been paid. We’re really diligent on how we approach this thing as a business. Make sure we have cash flow all the time, make sure we can fund the whole operation. The amount of networking and parties we’re doing all the time, it’s better to have 2 people.
AllHipHop: Wait, so is it 2 or 3 people?
Joel Banks: It’s 3, our little brother still lives in the Bay. He still definitely sends us beats. He’s more of a behind-the-scenes guy, he doesn’t enjoy the studio life like we do. It works out we can handle it down here in LA while he shoots music to us from the Bay.
Taylor Banks: At the end of the day, we have 2 people coming up with ideas versus one. You’re always going to win more if you have more ideas to the table, more beats all the time. You never really know what’s going to take off or what people really want, what different weird sound people are going to like. The more ideas the better.
AllHipHop: Talk about your lit vending machine with the Hennessy and Backwoods.
Joel Banks: A lot of the music we make is more nightclub/stripclub music. We wanted our studio to be a fun environment that reflects the music we like, also what we like to do. We tried to make it look like a Miami nightclub, bottle service. We buy the artists whatever liquor they like, if they’re over 21 of course. They can smoke in the room. Our vending machine almost started as a joke, but we drink Hennessy every night. [chuckles] Artists love Backwoods. For the entourage and people down the hall, they’ll buy it.
Taylor Banks: We got this studio as an empty room, so we really built this whole thing out. We built the booth, we had to come up with the vision of what environment artists would want to be in. The Hennessy vending machine, the selfie mirror, lights synced with the music, it feels like a club. We bring in new artists we’ve never met, they hit us up the next day. They want to come back because they’re so comfortable here. We want them to want to come here.
Joel Banks: The vending machine is also a marketing thing. People tag us when they see it, it’s funny. People wonder if the Hennessy’s going to break from the top row.
Taylor Banks: People tell us all the time, “yo I saw the Hennessy vending machine on IG, this is it right here?” It helps spread news about our studio.
AllHipHop: What are your goals as artists from this point?
Joel Banks: We really want to have our sound grow. We want to be the biggest in 2020. We want people to come to us for the music we make, for our sound to take off. In the future, we’d love to develop artists and sign producers. Get our brand to be really big. Do things outside of music, maybe in technology. Our #1 goal is to get us to be at the top. Have our sound take over.
Taylor Banks: We’re always thinking about our 2021 sound, trying to be ahead of the curve. Whenever we have artists in the studio, when we push play, we want to surprise them with something they’ve never heard before. Something crazy. The type of beats we make, we try to get singles. Not album cuts. Try to be the song that when people hear it, they’re like “what the f##k is that?” They have to search who produced that every single time.
AllHipHop: How’d you guys get your producer tag?
Joel Banks: We paid some dude on the internet to say the name. The option was of a radio voice, his voice, or a female. He did it once, it was $20. I said, “nah this sounds like s##t. Do it again.” I gave him another $20, he did it some more. I ended up having to chop 3 different parts of different takes to combine it. It worked out, it sounded good.
AllHipHop: Anything else you want to let us know?
Taylor Banks: For producers out there, you know your tag works if people see you and they say your tag first thing. If people aren’t saying your tag, you probably need a better tag. Our tag’s right in beat, it’s fire. You know the drums are going to drop right after you say it, it’s a whole thing.
Joel Banks: Some artists we’re working with now are Calboy, YK Orsiris, Lil Pump, Smokepurpp, Dreezy, Mulatto, Rico Nasty.
Taylor Banks: Queen Key, Tay Money, Chinese Kitty, Hoodrich, a lot of people.
