The Kickdrums may be hip-hop’s next big beatmakers. And they work out of a closet in Avon

"It's the curse of the Bone," says Penttila. "Every interview about Cleveland hip-hop, they ask us about the Bone. I mean, that was 15 years ago."

"If anybody could work together seriously, we'd be the next Atlanta right now," says DJ Terry Urban. "We have a buzz around people like Al Fatz and Chip tha Rippa. But nobody wants to work together to get shit done. Cleveland's a bunch of fucking haters."

Of course, Atlanta's a booming metropolis, and Cleveland's a shrinking one. The talent pool here is simply smaller, and doesn't have a major label to scout or develop it. And without a geographical peg like the coasts and the South, Cleveland is without a cohesive identity to market. Atlanta's crunk and Oakland's hyphy movements worked because they developed organically. But Cleveland is better known for stealing trends from other regions. Penttila was recently confronted in Dallas by a group of "slab" rappers — members of the Texan woofer-banging subgenre that Cleveland rappers like Chip openly borrow from. "These guys were like, 'Why do Cleveland cats think it's okay for them to steal our sound and our slang?'" says Penttila.

The Kickdrums say they want to make Cleveland aurally recognizable — and they have a deeply technical explanation, with references to subtle melody lines and megahertz stats, for how they'll do it. But by this time next year, the Kickdrums may be known as a Brooklyn production duo. That's how long they've given their chances in Cleveland.

"I can't see myself living in New York," says Fitts, who also lists L.A. as an option. "But if that's what we have to do to succeed, I definitely will."

“Life to Me” by Hi-Tek ft. Estelle (Produced by Hi-Tek):

The three-story house sits with windows boarded on an industrial street a few hundred feet from Cincinnati and just over the Kentucky border. To passing drunks, it's likely an attractive target at which to hurl that empty malt-liquor bottle. But the plum-red Escalade with 24-inch rims that is parked outside hints that the house isn't abandoned after all.

This is the workspace of veteran producer Hi-Tek, and inside is a fledgling producer's dream setup: A studio of polished wood and brushed metal that smells of incense and hydro smoke. A million-dollar soundboard. A band room stocked with instruments. An entire room devoted only to storing thousands of records. There's even a weight room.

On the walls throughout hang flat-screen TVs displaying footage fed from cameras mounted around the house, commemorative records from the various rap stars who have recorded here — Busta Rhymes, Eminem, and Snoop Dogg among them — and, of course, portraits of Tony Montana, the patron saint of hip-hop.

On the floors above, Hi-Tek has set up an apartment for his four-day marathon recording sessions. "You can come down in house shoes and boxers, and make a beat," he says. The supremely relaxed producer, wearing a T-shirt with his own name on it, shows the Kickdrums around, punctuating everything with his favorite declaration: "That's what time it is."

A few days earlier, the Kickdrums had received a call from transplanted Clevelander Bauer, saying that Hi-Tek wanted to meet them. The producers asked no questions; they threw their hard drive into a padded case and piled into Penttila's parents' Saturn for the four-hour drive to Cincinnati.

Besides the Bone Thugs, Hi-Tek has had perhaps the most success of any Ohio-bred hip-hop artist. He produced most of Black Star, the classic collaboration between Talib Kweli and Mos Def, then formed a duo with Kweli in releasing Train of Thought. He's now working under Dr. Dre on Dre's long-delayed and much-anticipated Detox, and just finished the final of three solo albums.

Hi-Tek refuses to move from Cincinnati and rarely wavers from his underground sound — organic, instrument-heavy beats that appeal to bohemians like Kweli. In the late '90s, when the public grew sick of Master P's brainless chanting, the music industry was looking for intelligent music to push to the forefront — and landed on Hi-Tek. "You just gotta keep making music that you're proud of," he says.

A huge, sweaty man named Big D lugs a bag of ice to the studio, and Hi-Tek chills some Rémy Martin in a plastic cup. They're joined by Bauer, who focuses his efforts on the lit blunt in between his fingers. "Ya'll got some shit to play me?" Hi-Tek finally asks.

The Kickdrums play some new Ray Cash tracks on the studio's overpowering sound system. Hi-Tek barely nods his head and remains focused on texting on his Sidekick.

"If we had just left it at Ray, we might have been sunk," Fitts says later. "We might as well have gotten back in the car at that point."

Fitts then takes a whimsical risk, playing an indie-rock song on which he sings and plays all the instruments. Hi-Tek looks a bit confused at first. But suddenly, he stands up and starts shaking his arms, like a child who just discovered dancing. The session has new life.