Frank Dukes

 ( 1983 Births ) 

In 2005, he connected with Toronto-based music manager Mo' Jointz who found Duke placements with Toronto and New York-area hip hop artists, including Slaughterhouse's Joell Ortiz, Kool G Rap, and Choclair. Feeney was one of the first producers to work with Drake, producing the track "Money" off his debut mixtape Room for Improvement, released in 2006. Feeney's relationship with producer Boi-1da, who would become one of the in-house producers for Drake's OVO Sound label, has led to many collaborations for Drake since this time.

In 2008 and 2009, he took part in the Red Bull Big Tune producer competition; at these events, he connected with a number of artists and their A&R, most notably G-Unit, Danny Brown, and Wu-Tang Clan's Ghostface Killah. In the late 2000s, Feeney would produce a number of tracks for G-Unit rappers Lloyd Banks and 50 Cent. This included his first paid placement for a major artist, the song "Sooner or Later (Die 1 Day)" on Banks' third studio album H.F.M. 2 (The Hunger for More 2), for which Feeney was $5,000 paid in 2008, among other tracks released years later.

At the end of the 2000s, Feeney connected with Wu-Tang member Ghostface Killah, producing three tracks for his 2010 album Apollo Kids. The two met after Feeney won the Red Bull Big Tune championship in 2009; Feeney had also given Ghost a Mixtape the previous year. Feeney performed as his and Cappadonna's tour DJ; active as a DJ in Toronto, Feeney also played sets during their tour as well as at the 2010 CMJ Music Marathon in New York City.

This relationship led to a series of Wu-Tang-related collaborations over the following five years, including producing more than half the tracks for the RZA-produced The Man with the Iron Fists album in 2012. He also worked on his own unreleased album, collaborating with Danny Brown and Willie the Kid, among others. During the same period, Feeney met the Canadian hip hop/jazz group BadBadNotGood at their first live show in 2011. Feeney and the group became close collaborators, even sharing a studio for many years; the band members play on many of the samples Feeney produced during the decade and, in turn, Feeney produced their first original album III, released in 2014. Feeney' work with Ghostface and BBNG culminated in their shared 2015 record, Sour Soul.

Kingsway Music Library and sample composition

During the first half of the decade, Feeney began writing music that he could use and manipulate as samples in his own work, much like the traditional record sampling he took part in as a hip hop producer. Inspired in part by his experiences working in 2010/2011 with the Menahan Street Band, a contemporary funk and soul ensemble that employ vintage recording techniques (and achieve the 1960s/1970s sound and style so often sought after in hip hop samples), Feeney began recording his compositions similarly, using vintage and analog equipment. Observing the sample clearance issues and poor Royalty payment he experienced while working with 50 Cent and Ghostface, Feeney had the idea of using his body of work as samples for other record producers to use, much like the traditional Production music model, and began sharing his work with the likes of Vinylz, DJ Dahi, and Boi-1da; beginning in 2013, he packaged a portion of his compositions into various volumes for a collection titled Kingsway Music Library which he sells with the clearance of his samples guaranteed.

This sample production work created acclaim for Feeney in 2014 when a composition he wrote was given to Boi-1da and flipped into the Drake single "0 to 100." From this point forward, he was inspired to grow Kingsway Music Library into an established platform for original music for sampling. He continues to distribute a limited amount of his music this way and invites up-and-coming musicians to collaborate or contribute whole volumes to his platform. In 2019, he spearheaded a collaboration between Kingsway Music Library and Toronto's Regent Park School of Music. Called Parkscapes, all tracks are performed by students of the music program, and all proceeds, including licensing and royalty payments, help fund the school's programs. As of 2021, Feeney has personally released fifteen volumes of music through Kingsway.

His compositions, including those designated for Kingsway Music, have led to him working with record producers such as Boi-1da, Metro Boomin, Vinylz, DJ Dahi, and more, landing him prominent placements for Kanye West, Mac Miller, Drake, Eminem, Jeremih, Tory Lanez and Rihanna, among others.

Hitmaker

Feeney began growing in notability in 2013/2014 and started working more often with major artists in the studio. He met producer Louis Bell and Post Malone in 2015–2016 and worked on tracks for Post Malone's debut album Stoney (including "Congratulations"); Feeney also worked extensively on Post's 2019 album Hollywood's Bleeding. In 2017, he produced a string of singles for Frank Ocean and Blonded Radio ("Chanel", "Biking", "Lens").

In 2018, three albums that Feeney executive produced were released: the debut solo album of frequent collaborator Matthew Tavares from BadBadNotGood; The Weeknd's My Dear Melancholy EP, which included the single "Call Out My Name"; and Camila Cabello's debut album Camila. Feeney met Cabello in November 2016, beginning what would be her debut album. Notably, he produced her wildly successful single "Havana." During this period until around 2020, he was represented by Electric Feel Management.

In total, Feeney was a credited producer or songwriter on over 300 tracks during the decade, including multiple tracks for artists Mac Miller, Amine, Drake, Lorde, and Travis Scott, among others. By the end of the decade, he was generally considered one of the top producers/songwriters; he was also named or nominated as Songwriter of the Year by multiple music industry organizations including BMI, SOCAN, the , and the iHeartRadio Music Awards.

In September 2021, he partnered with Tracklib on which he distributes hundreds of Master record and stems. The following month, Feeney announced The Prince, a signature synths plug-in, created with the software company Cradle.

On November 16, 2021, Feeney released his beat tape The Way of Ging. The album was released as NFTs and available to stream on SoundCloud for one week; it was later released on streaming services. Three days later, he announced his retirement as Frank Feeney on social media. He indicated that he would continue working on new music projects under the name of Ging (a variation of his middle name King). Since that time, he has released generative music and art and has been vocal about artistic innovation like the use of Web3. In 2022, he began releasing and performing his original studio music.

His debut album We're Here, My Dear was released in November 2022.