How to Make a Concrete Boys Type Beat (+ Free Loops)

What BPM and key is a Concrete Boys type beat?

Most loops run 98 to 148 BPM. The wide span is on purpose: this crew jumps from laid-back bounce to fast, hyped cuts, and the bulk of the catalog sits around 130 BPM. The jazzier, DC2Trill-leaning cuts push higher, into the 150 to 160 range, so if you are chasing that smoother E-piano feel you can sit near the top of the span.

The key is mostly minor, which keeps that slightly dark, playful tension under the bright samples. Take the key straight from your loop and put the 808 and the melody on the same root. If you are sampling raw audio, do not trust an online key finder blindly. Drop the sample into your DAW and use detect tempo to lock the BPM, since tools like that are often off by a chunk.

How to make a Concrete Boys type beat in 6 steps

The loops in step 1 stream right here and the mp3 is free. Then work through the six steps.

1. 1Pick a sample▾

   Take a loop built on piano or brass in minor, 98 to 148 BPM. Grab one from the list below that already has movement and a bit of character before any drums, since that character is what carries a Concrete Boys beat. If you are flipping a soul record yourself, hunt for a karaoke or instrumental version so you are not fighting the original vocals, then pitch the whole thing up a few semitones. Producers in this lane routinely nudge soul flips up three to six semitones, both to brighten the mood and to stay off the original enough to avoid a clearance problem.

   • ▶
     Selfish
     140 BPM · Cmin
     DarkEthnicVintage
     @ndacompany
     ↓
   • ▶
     Reason
     148 BPM · Cmin
     BrassDarkVirtual
     @ndacompany
     ↓
   • ▶
     Buzz
     140 BPM · Cmin
     BrassDarkOrchestral
     @ndacompany
     ↓
   • ▶
     Packet
     148 BPM · A#min
     AmbientDarkDetroit
     @ndacompany
     ↓
   • ▶
     Inception
     121 BPM · Bmin
     BrassDarkOrchestral
     @ndacompany
     ↓
2. 2Lay the 808▾

   It is the foundation. On the root of the loop key, eight bars kept plain. Set it to cut itself so the notes cannot overlap, add some saturation, then it pushes without fighting the sample. A trick from the soul-flip cooks is to run two 808 layers, one dead simple holding the root and a second bouncier one for movement, both tuned to the same key.
3. 3Hi-hats on top▾

   Start with a two-step pattern and take single hats back out again. The open hat drops into that gap, that is where the bounce comes from. Keep the fast rolls only in front of the changes.
4. 4Clap and kick▾

   A hard clap or snare on two and four, plus a second quieter layer panned to one side. The kick stays under the 808 and shares the low end with it. Keep the whole kit lean. Four sounds, a snare, hats, open hats and the 808, is enough, and most of the mix work is just leveling those pieces against each other.
5. 5Leave pockets▾

   This is a group beat. Mute the melody for a bar before the hook, drop to just drums under a feature, bring the sample back on the turn. Space is what lets several rappers sit on one beat. The whole point, as the cooks put it, is to leave room for the artist and let the sample carry.
6. 6Arrange▾

   Keep it simple. 16 bars as the hook, then a verse with one layer gone, then a bridge with a different sound. The hook comes early so the beat stays catchy and easy to place. A clean fade-out at the end signals the beat is over and reads well when you upload it.

The collective sound: many voices, one loop

The point of a Concrete Boys record is the ensemble, so build the beat as a stage, not a wall. One clear melodic idea in the loop, drums that stay consistent, and enough empty space for a verse to breathe. The producers who cook for the crew say it plainly: do not add too much, because you want to leave room for the artist to do their thing.

Yachty has called his own lane bubblegum trap, built on sample-heavy, sometimes playful sources. You do not need a cartoon sample, but the lesson holds: a loop with personality beats a generic chord progression every time. The flip side of that minimalism is that every sound has to be hard on its own, since there is nothing to hide behind.

Flipping a soul sample like the cooks do

A big slice of the Concrete Boys and Lil Yachty sound is chopped soul. Find a soulful source, then grab the instrumental or karaoke cut so the lead vocal is out of your way, and pitch it up so it is brighter and sits away from the original.

Once it is in key, chop it into parts and assign them: one chop as the intro, one as the hook, one as a bridge. For the melody switch-up a lot of cooks extract the loop and the vocals separately so they can swap the vocal chop in and out without touching the instrument underneath.

If your sample has its own drums bleeding through, do not leave them in. High-pass or low-pass the sample to pull those drums down or isolate them, so when your own kit lands on top it owns the rhythm. A touch of stereo widening and a short reverb make the flip feel thicker and dirtier without adding any extra parts.

Piano, brass and the E-piano jazz lane

Piano gives the warm, slightly melancholic core. Brass stabs add the swagger and sit well in the hook where you want something loud and confident. A saxophone patch is a shortcut to that smoother, jazzier concrete feel the DC2Trill-leaning beats lean on.

Keep the loop dry and let it breathe. If you layer piano and brass, high-pass the brass so it sits above the piano instead of muddying the mids. Strings can glue the two together in the background.

For the jazzy variant, layer two E-pianos instead of one, then humanize them. Randomize the pattern slightly, add a bit of strumming and nudge the velocities around so the chords sound played rather than robotic. Pan the second layer to the other side and drop a piano melody in the lower octaves under the chords.

Pitch the sample up and down

The position of the loop is not fixed. One or two semitones change the whole mood and can turn a stiff loop into the one.

Up, the melody gets brighter and more hyped, which suits the fast cuts. Down, it gets heavier and darker for the harder verses. The key moves with it, so pull the 808 to the new root afterwards.

The same move doubles as a beat switch. Pitch the sample up a couple of semitones on the bridge and push the 808 up with it, often a full octave or two, and the back half of the beat lifts into a new section without you writing anything new.

Common mistakes

Filling every bar. A group beat lives from space. If the loop plays non-stop there is nowhere for four rappers to trade, and the energy flattens.

Leaving the lows in every track. High-pass each melody layer so the 808 owns the bottom alone, otherwise the low end turns to mush the moment the brass comes in. The same goes for any drums baked into your sample. Filter them out before your own kit goes on.

Letting the master clip. These beats need to be loud, but loud is not the same as clipping. Put a soft clipper on the master so the level stays up without breaking, and lift the high end a touch so the hats stay crispy.

Copying other type beats instead of the originals. Type beats are built to rap over and smooth off the edges. Pull up the actual Concrete Boys records first and copy the energy, not a second-hand version of it.

In FL Studio and in Logic

Nothing above depends on the DAW. You need a sampler for the 808, an EQ and a reverb, nothing else.

FL Studio: the 808 goes in a sampler channel with cut itself on and some saturation in the channel. Draw the hats and rolls with the paintbrush instead of slicing them. To key a raw sample, drop it in the playlist, right-click and detect tempo so you are working to the real BPM.

Logic: Quick Sampler for the 808, set to mono, pull the hold up in the amp envelope. Step Sequencer for the hats, one bus for all melody tracks with a Channel EQ cutting the lows plus a reverb.

Using the loops from NDA Company

Every loop here is played by hand, no AI, and free as an mp3. Load one into step 1 and you have a Concrete Boys starting point in minutes. Because they are already in key and in tempo, you skip the sample hunting and the tempo detecting and go straight to chopping and drums.