Producers are an integral part of music creation, but so few of these sonic gurus get the recognition they deserve. HEAT RISING looks at the best beats by an up-and-coming producer, and talks about where they’re from (ROOTS), what they’ve done (RESUME), and why they’re an exciting presence in music today (REASONS TO WATCH).

ROOTS: San Antonio-based producer Beautiful Lou has generated two or three handfuls of blog-acclaim by concocting warped, hazy, sample-based beats that are perfectly suited to hip-hop’s viral generation, but Lou doesn’t claim to be an expert when it comes to the technical construction of a hip-hop beat. Early on in his musical experiments, Beautiful Lou bought a copy of Nero, an archaic CD-burning software, and upon learning of its ability to manipulate WAV files, Lou started chopping and warping his samples. Along with a BOSS drum machine, Lou still uses Nero to flip his samples today. Beautiful Lou was introduced to hip-hop in 1998 via the breakdancing scene in Dallas. Hearing the cinematic sample-based productions of RZA and UGK motivated Beautiful Lou to start crafting his own class of dreamy, drugged out hip-hop beats.

RESUME: Beautiful Lou’s first real exposure came through producing a beat for the rightfully sanctioned parade marshal of hip-hop’s Internet movement: “Cocaine” for Lil B. Beautiful Lou had trouble finding a scene for what he wanted to do in Texas, so he felt he had no choice but to seek like minded artists on Internet forums. Lou sensed that the Based God was on the verge of something big, so he sent him a handful of beats, and a final version of “Cocaine” shortly after. Excited by what Lil B did with his instrumental, Lou sought out similar artists to collaborate with, including Squadda B, Western Tink, and Shady Blaze.

Beautiful Lou’s beat for A$AP Rocky’s Internet-shattering Live.Love.A$AP mixtape (“Trilla”) got him his first and only real taste of radio exposure, and more recently, his creative relationship with Florida’s Tumblr-star/stream of consciousness rap queen Kitty Pryde has ensured Lou’s projects a place on the playlists of microbloggers everywhere.

REASONS TO WATCH: Kitty Pryde’s “okaycupid” was singled out by Rolling Stone as number seventeen on a list of the best songs of 2012, and as much as that can be attributed to Kitty Pryde’s adorably suburban-yet-lucid flow, “okaycupid” wouldn’t have hit nearly as hard without Beautiful Lou’s cloudy, wandering soundscape. It’s a given that Beautiful Lou will be fielding beat requests from the best in 2013.