We’re proud to announce that the Kingsway Music Library has officially arrived at WAVS. Starting this month, we’ll be rolling out the full 150+ album catalog, beginning with 10 releases today and new titles dropping every week until the entire collection is live.
If you make Hip-Hop, R&B, or Pop, you’ve almost certainly heard Kingsway’s work, even if you didn’t know it by name. Check it out here or keep reading to learn more about why this matters.
What Is the Kingsway Music Library?
Kingsway was founded by Grammy-winning producer Adam King Feeney, better known as Frank Dukes. In the early 2010s, after years of dealing with the headaches of traditional sample clearance (tracking down rights holders, negotiating splits, watching songs get shelved over legal complications), Dukes started composing original pieces specifically designed to be sampled.
He recorded them to tape using vintage analog gear, Neve preamps, and rare microphones, with the goal of capturing the warmth and character of the classic records that producers were already digging through crates to find.
What started as compositions shared among a small circle of collaborators like Boi-1da, Vinylz, and DJ Dahi quickly became something much bigger. Boi-1da sampled one of Dukes’ pieces for Drake’s “0 to 100” in 2014, and that placement put Kingsway on the map. Since then, the catalog has been behind some of the decade’s biggest records.
Here’s a few notable placements to give you a sense of the caliber:
- Drake — “0 to 100,” “Pop Style,” “No Tellin'”
- Kanye West — “Real Friends”
- Travis Scott — “Who? What!” (feat. Young Thug & Justin Bieber)
- Kendrick Lamar — “Levitate” (Untitled Unmastered)
- Frank Ocean — “Chanel,” “Biking,” “Lens”
- Freddie Gibbs & Madlib — “Half Manne Half Cocaine”
- Taylor Swift — “nice to have a friend”
- Lil Mosey — “Rockstar”
Producers like Jake One, Illmind, Hit-Boy, and Metro Boomin have all used Kingsway material. Madlib, arguably one of the most revered crate-diggers in hip-hop, sampled it for his Bandana project with Freddie Gibbs. That alone tells you something about the quality of their library.
Kingsway features original compositions only
Every Kingsway release is built around original, high quality compositions. They don’t do stock loops or pitch-shift copyright protected samples.
Master clearance is always guaranteed. That’s the core premise of this partnership: WAVS users can chop, flip, and arrange these compositions without the clearance nightmares that usually plague sample-based production. Royalty splits apply for major label placements or tracks that cross a streaming threshold, but the licensing terms are transparent from the start.
Dukes wrote many of the original compositions but has since brought in other contributing musicians and producers; That list includes CVRE, FORTHENIGHT, Mino, Louis Bell, Wallis Lane, Allen Ritter, WahWah James, and many others.
Early volumes leaned into vintage record aesthetics that producers love to sample, focusing on soul, funk, jazz and R&B concepts. The catalog gradually evolved from the retro palette into more contemporary production styles, with musicianship and recording quality being the most constant element.
What the Kingsway partnership means for WAVS users
This is the biggest catalog addition we’ve ever made. Over the coming months, thousands of new industry-grade samples will be rolling into the WAVS library. That includes drum breaks, loops, synths, keys, brass, and compositions spanning over a decade of musical output.
Access the Kingsway catalog from our web browser or use the desktop app for a more advanced set of features. Browse, audition, pitch-shift, tempo-match, reverse, and more when you use the standalone app with our WAVS DAW bridge.
Again, we’ll have new Kingsway releases dropping weekly until the full catalog is available, so every month there’s something new to dig into. Subscribe to WAVS for get access as we roll it out.
