Melina Nguyen
Melina Nguyen
Though The Scythe was conceived on a whim, the group is in it for the long haul, with their debut album dropping March 6.
Credit: iloveit!
When members of the ULTRAGROUND and Working on Dying collectives began their collaboration, what ended up being realized as The Scythe originally had a vastly different concept.
“It was actually going to be school-oriented,” said ULTRAGROUND producer iloveit!. “It was literally we’re going to have a football game, and it was going to be ULTRAGROUND versus Working on Dying.”
Each side would be headed by its own mascot, the project akin to a game or a bowl. Everyone would play a different position: for example, LAZER DIM 700 was slated to be the cornerback and ilykimchi would be the receiver, iloveit! explained.
“But the thing is, it kinda didn’t make sense because it’s like, we’re one team, so why would we be playing against each other?” he said.
Fast forward to March 2026, more than a year after the project’s inception, Denzel Curry has assembled the Avengers of the new wave of hip hop.
The Scythe, headed by Denzel and consisting of FERG — formerly A$AP Ferg — Tia Corine, Bktherula, and Key Nyata, seeks to combine the Miami rapper’s energetic style with gritty, old-school southern rap, according to a press release.
On their quest to stamp their project into this new era of hip hop, Denzel and Key Nyata’s ULTRAGROUND collaborated with Working on Dying, a platinum-selling producer collective responsible for hits from Lil Uzi Vert, Future, Drake, JuiceWRLD, Baby Keem, and more.
The partnership was born at the Brewery Recording Studio in downtown Los Angeles, where iloveit! and Denzel occupied neighboring rooms. When the location closed in February 2025, the two were searching for a new studio and chanced upon BNYX’s studio after BEAUTIFULMVN invited them.
Prior to reconnecting, BEAUTIFULMVN and iloveit! had already collaborated on “Steel Doors” by Freddie Gibbs the year before, during weekly production sessions with ULTRAGROUND.
In The Scythe’s nascence, BEAUTIFULMVN and iloveit! were working with Denzel at the time, and Swaggyono with Black Fortune.
And after watching a comedy show, Denzel and iloveit! returned to the studio with the fateful words:
“They’re just like, ‘Yo, we have this idea, man. We should do something ULTRAGROUND and Working on Dying — seven tapes,’” BEAUTIFULMVN explained. “He starts breaking it down, ‘We should put all our stuff together.’”
It seemed like a perfect harmony: ULTRAGROUND’s logo of a grim reaper equipped with a scythe and Working on Dying’s holding a hammer as its weapon of choice. The fact they had similar imagery was almost prophetic.
“We were just like, ‘You might as well just call it The Scythe,” BEAUTIFULMVN said.
What was supposed to be just a beat tape with him, iloveit!, and some verses from Denzel turned into a full rollout and album release after feedback from Mike WiLL Made-It.
“Mike Will told [Denzel], you should just make this a full-on project,” BEAUTIFULMVN shared. “It really started getting some legs once we did my session in New York.”
According to the three producers, cook sessions with The Scythe were controlled chaos — especially for iloveit! and BEAUTIFULMVN, who served as the executive producers for the project.
For iloveit!, he compared working with the other producers to “driving a supercar or a supercomputer.”
“I think when you’re doing a solo as a producer and you’re in the mindset of 100% like, I don’t need to collaborate with anybody, it’s like, ‘OK, I gotta find a melody, gotta find a drum, gotta find a groove, gotta find some accent,’ like there’s a checklist of everything that you do,” he described.
Compare that to Oogie Mane going crazy on just the hi-hats, rolls, and 808s; iloveit! handling the melodies; then, ilykimchi putting an eclectic twist on the arrangement.
“By that time, it’s like the time that it would have taken me to do everything — just 3x’d it,” iloveit! added.
Then just AirDrop it to the engineer and wait for Denzel to record a verse and say, “Alright, where’s the next one?”
BEAUTIFULMVN said the bulk of the beats were made at BNYX’s studio, who is also his brother.
“I love my brother to death, but I think sometimes, you know, you just kind of enjoy it. I felt bad a little bit there,” he joked.
“It was too many bodies, and he’s in there trying to do the session,” BEAUTIFULMVN continued. “And my brother is real particular about the way he wants his studio to be, but he played a big role in allowing us to use the space.”
That’s the sense you get about The Scythe — a constant inertia and a lax, we-just-ball energy that seemed more like a college dorm room than a strict studio.
“It just felt comfortable and it felt more like we was more like a family or friends. We were playing spades, we would play a video game,” Swaggyono added. “We’re not just in there just like, Denzel is being like a drill sergeant.”
iloveit! said he did whatever he could to make everyone feel welcome and the space communal.
“I went in with mad snacks, like ramen, bars… I’ll get the sparkle waters,” he shared. “Even outside of just specific sites, people who were just kind of in the Working on Dying universe would come through.”
But when it was time to lock in, especially after the in-person sessions and the transition to remote collabs in August, the team captains kept the group in check, organized the stems, and tracked the final versions of each song.
“Once we got to New York, that’s when like I feel a lot of work got done and we probably really made headway,” BEAUTIFULMVN explained, adding that songs were starting to get placed on the album during this period.
The producers were playing the role of students to a T, delving into NOLA bounce, Kompa from Haiti, old Memphis beats, and funk music.
Swaggyono said, “We just was studying music, trying to incorporate it into our new sound. And that’s part that I liked because it challenged us as producers to do something different and out of our comfort zone.”
The producers heavily utilized hardware and keyboards, especially those at BNYX’s studio, for the album.
For producers, The Scythe serves as an example for embracing collaboration, iloveit! argued.
“It’s one thing to be like, ‘Yo, I’m gonna go lock in in my basement and get right. And there’s time to do this, like you got to do that.
“You can literally just go to people that you’re cool with. It ain’t even gotta be the best producers you know. It gotta be the people that you enjoy spending time around with,” he said.
As the project neared completion, the supergroup highlighted key moments during the process, which involved legendary names like Juicy J.
“It’ll feel like I’m out of my body,” BEAUTIFULMVN said. “I’m just like what, where, what the f*ck. I’m chatting with Juicy J and they’re talking about all the old stories. And he’s just like, ‘Yo, these beats are dope,’ and I’m just like bro, okay, yeah. I’m glad you f*cked with it.”
The song with Juicy J, "PHONY," felt like a passing of the torch from Hypnotize Minds to The Scythe, he explained.
“There’s a lyric in the song [that] he said on the hook,” BEAUTIFULMVN shared, alluding to an easter egg about Juicy J’s record label with DJ Paul in Memphis in the ‘90s.
This album is only the first part of an evolving “movement,” according to Swaggyono — composed of a look and sound that everyone contributed to — with more releases planned for the future.
“My fave memory was definitely being in the studio, listening to the album back and coming up with visuals and building a world and story around the songs,” ilykimchi wrote.
As the project was nearing completion, BEAUTIFULMVN and iloveit! began tying loose ends, even driving eight hours down to “m*therfucking Oakland” to go to Denzel’s shows to finish up.
“The whole coming together and being able to put away the egos, to all add our creative taste to this project, I think is a beautiful thing,” BEAUTIFULMVN said.
The fellow members concurred, with ilykimchi calling the album “intentional.”
“I feel like some albums are just compilations of songs, but this one was intentional, and you can tell every song has its place in the world of The Scythe fam,” she said.
And for Swaggyono, this release is an especially notable landmark in his career, saying it was all about focusing on execution rather than worrying about sending music and hoping to land somewhere.
“Everything I produce, I’m always excited because I’m just a producer and I’m always excited about putting my work out,” he said. “[But] it made me feel like, OK, I’m a professional now.”
During the progress of Strictly 4 The Scythe, iloveit! was jokingly referred to as a graduate of ULTRAGROUND Academy who later attended Working on Dying for college.
While the crew was wrapping up the album, his and BEAUTIFULMVN’s birthdays were coming up. To celebrate what felt like the end of finals, iloveit! talked about how they held onto several bottles that lasted the two weeks between their birthdays.
“And then [BEAUTIFULMVN’s] going through the songs he wanted to make, and he pulled out this old Juvenile song, and he’s like, ‘Man, I need a beat like this.
“I got mad because I was like, ‘Yo, I literally just made a New Orleans bounce beat. I made this in the group chat, bro.’”
When he pulled it up in the studio, with everyone in their inebriated states, that’s when track No. 4, “HOOPTY,” was made.
Stories like that are behind every song on the album — “TAN” being ilykimchi’s personal favorite, Swaggyono taking the lead on “MUTT THAT BIH,” and BEAUTIFULMVN claiming “UP” “puts you in another world.”
iloveit! explained how those interactions solidified the relationship between the producers, where they were able to be on the same page more often than not and begin trusting one another’s opinions.
“I think that’s what’s beautiful about ULTRAGROUND and Working on Dying. Being able to work with such amazing people,” he said.
Strictly 4 The Scythe is out March 6 via Loma Vista Recordings. The supergroup has already released a single and music video for “THE SCYTHE,” “LIT EFFECT,” and “MUTT THAT BIH” at the time of publishing.
BEAUTIFULMVN acknowledged his brother BNYX, his manager Ness, his lawyer Jason, iloveit!, Swaggyono, Oogie Mane, ilykimchi, Working on Dying, Denzel Curry, and his mom.
iloveit! acknowledged his mom, his brother, his family, Dot da Genius and Andrew Krivonos from Brewery Recording Studio, Bridget, Dylan, and Jimmy from ULTRAGROUND, and his roommate.
Swaggyono acknowledged The Scythe, Working on Dying, ULTRAGROUND, the artists, the people behind the scenes, and the people who are excited for the project.
The full list of producers who contributed to Strictly 4 The Scythe includes BEAUTIFULMVN, BNYX, Bryan Yepes, Oogie Mane, ilykimchi, Swaggyono, SkipOnDaBeat, Jack LoMastro, Jonnywood, ManMade, POSHstronaut, DJ Qeys, and Chris Dunkley.
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