Serf Steps To The Plate With “King Of Swing: The Beat Tape”

There is a difference between drums that simply keep time and drums that make a record move. On his new instrumental album, King Of Swing: The Beat Tape, Fresno producer and emcee Serf puts that distinction at the center of the music.

Released September 1, the 10-track project finds Serf leaning decisively into drums, chops, and the rhythmic imperfections that give Boom Bap its unmistakable knock. After exploring stripped-down production throughout his extensive catalog, including his long-running No Drums series, King Of Swing sounds like the producer turning his attention back toward the drum kit and making it the star of the game.

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The title is appropriate. Swing has always been one of Hip-Hop production’s ingredients that is easier to feel than explain. Move a kick or snare slightly away from mathematical perfection, let the samples breathe between the drums, and suddenly a loop starts carrying attitude. King Of Swing is Serf’s exercise in that pocket.

According to Serf, he added new drums to his production arsenal before creating the album, building the project around fresh chops and a variety of harder-hitting percussion. More importantly, he makes one thing clear: there are no drumless productions here. Every track was constructed with drums driving the music.

That makes King Of Swing an interesting counterpoint to another side of Serf’s production identity. His catalog stretches back years with projects dedicated specifically to drumless, sample-based Hip-Hop. On 2017’s No Drums: The Beat Tape, for example, Serf described his approach as using straight samples without additional drums unless percussion already existed within the source material. His 2026 output has continued exploring multiple sides of his production, including Same Difference, Dirtywave, Soulful Of No Drums and God Era: The Beat Tape.

The album opens with “Some Of That Fly Soul Beat” before moving through “Bound By Honor Beat,” “Choose To Be That One Beat,” “For Those That Yearn Beat” and “Top Of The Drum Beat.” The second half consists of “On That Level Beat,” “Give It Your Best Beat,” “Let It Go Son Beat,” “Off The Hook Beat” and “Y’all Ready Know Beat.”

None of the tracks reaches two-and-a-half minutes. Rather than stretching ideas beyond their natural life, Serf works in compact bursts. A groove arrives, establishes itself, and gets out of the way. That economy gives the tape the character of a producer’s beat reel while still allowing the ten selections to function as a complete instrumental project.

And for emcees listening, that open space matters.

Serf explicitly invites rappers to connect with him, noting that the beats are available for purchase. That fits a catalog built not simply around passive instrumental listening, but around the traditional producer-emcee relationship: make something that knocks hard enough that somebody immediately wants to rhyme over it.

The Fresno artist describes himself as both an emcee and beatmaker and identifies his music as “Truthhop.” Across his Bandcamp catalog, Boom Bap, soul samples, lo-fi textures, drumless production, and underground Hip-Hop repeatedly form the foundation of his sound. That history is what makes King Of Swing more than another folder of instrumentals.

Serf isn’t trying to recreate an era simply because the techniques are associated with an earlier period of Hip-Hop. He’s continuing to work inside a production language he has spent years developing—sampling, chopping, manipulating rhythm and finding different ways to make familiar ingredients hit differently.

Even the cover gets the point across.

A baseball player stands ready to swing, except his head has been replaced by a sampler. It is ridiculous in exactly the right way. The visual turns the producer into the hitter and the machine into his headspace. The bat is ready. The drums are loaded.

Now Serf is stepping into the box. With King Of Swing: The Beat Tape, he isn’t chasing the home run with oversized production tricks. He’s trusting the fundamentals: chops, drums, timing, and feel. Sometimes that’s all a beat needs.