Few pieces of music technology have ignited the kind of excitement typically reserved for a blockbuster album release or a coveted pair of limited-edition sneakers. Yet that was the precise reaction when Akai unveiled the MPC Sample. Within hours, social media feeds filled with music producers recording themselves crafting beats in real time, turning the compact sampler into the center of a viral movement that celebrated creativity over convenience. The overwhelming demand quickly sold out the device, attracting both longtime MPC loyalists and a new generation of beatmakers eager to embrace the tactile experience of analog-inspired production. At a time when artificial intelligence and software continue to reshape the creative landscape, the MPC Sample became a powerful reminder that hands-on music-making remains as influential and inspiring as ever.

For decades, Akai has stood as one of the most iconic names in music production, helping redefine Hip-Hop, R&B, and countless other genres through its groundbreaking MPC line. From legendary producers to emerging creators, generations have relied on Akai’s hardware to transform ideas into timeless records, cementing the company’s reputation as a driving force behind modern music production.

Few people understand that legacy better than Akai Professional’s Creative A&R Director and Global Training/Artist Relations Manager Andy Mac. As the company’s global ambassador for more than two decades, Mac has become the bridge between one of music’s most celebrated brands and the producers who continue to shape culture. Long before becoming the worldwide face of Akai, he built his career inside London’s thriving Hip-Hop and R&B scene. “I’ve been doing productions and stuff since about ’95,” Mac tells VIBE.

“I came up on the whole Jazzy B, Red Kingpin, Beverly Knight [era]. Like the backend of Loose Ends and Shalamar. I didn’t come into mainstream hip-hop when the Beastie Boys and stuff were coming out. I kind of gravitated towards the more soulful side of what was going on.” Developing relationships with producers, engineers, and artists while producing remixes and commercial releases of his own, Mac’s firsthand experience has given him a unique perspective on both the evolution of production and the enduring appeal of the MPC.

When reflecting on the unprecedented response to the MPC Sample, Mac recalls, “If anyone said to me, ‘One day, all of these cats are going to text you on the same day,’ I’d have said, ‘Yeah, right.’ When we released that picture, my phone was off the scales. Pete Rock, Jermaine Dupri, Rodney Jerkins, Erick Sermon. Everyone who was anyone was hitting us up just to figure out where it is and how they can get it. That was a real moment.”

Now, with the recent release of the MPC One G2, MPC Live III Retro, and MPC Key 37 G2, Akai has repositioned itself as a conduit between producers and musicians of all ages, with products built for the past, present, and future.

VIBE spoke with Andy Mac about the MPC Sample, Akai’s legacy within Hip-Hop, and more.

VIBE: Tell us a little bit about your backstory.

Andy Mac: I got into music production back in the ‘90s. I was signed to a label in the UK which was actually one of the first Hip-Hop/R&B remix outlets. There were two. You’ve got Timmy Blacksmith, who signed Stargate and ended up doing Ne-Yo and Beyoncé. Then, on the other side of London, there was this other unit called Full Crew. There was a guy called David there who used to be the chaperone for Blackstreet and all of these artists coming in from America. I was getting all of this firsthand apprenticeship of making beats and productions on AMT consoles, SSLs, and stuff like that. I ended up opening my own production house and doing a whole bunch of stuff for Sony, remixes for U.S. artists and stuff. Then, the industry took a bit of a turn in 2004, 2005, and I kind of fell into the Akai role. It was the best thing I ever did because it allowed me to use my label and production experience when it came to dealing with artists and becoming the face of the brand worldwide. It really primed me up for what I do now.

Akai recently revived the MPC with the MPC Sample. What was the biggest risk that you saw in launching it?

We always wanted to make something that gave homage to the legacy of MPC but could also be very simple. The more we were going through some design work, I was like, “You need to look at this and know exactly what it is.” Hence why it’s got the armrest and stuff like that. The workflow has to really be so simple, like one button to chop your samples. Simplistic stuff.

What does this new edition of the MPC say about the needs of producers of today and tomorrow?

The most amazing thing about the Sample is that it’s very accessible to anybody. If you want something that’s very instantaneous, it’s the perfect platform for that. Anyone can adopt it, and it’s very affordable. You can link it up to your DAW, and kind of track out your audio. You can resample. It really adds a lot of fun back into making music, and that’s what we’ve seen. We’ve seen so many different music genres from deep house, electronic, drum and bass to jungle and sample-based hip-hop.

You can integrate the MPC Sample into an overall workflow and connect it to bigger production setups. Where does this stand between an MPC60 and an MPC 2000?

I’ll be honest with you, so many people have moved on to the new devices now, but there are still people that love the nostalgia of the older units. What they’re finding is that using the Sample is actually way more powerful than the older stuff. You’ve got all the internal effects that let you create vinyl bit reduction; you can emulate all kinds of things to really degrade the sound if you want to. You’ve got all the resampling aspects of things. It removes a lot of the obstacles posed by these old devices. For instance, I’ve got an old 2000 XL here, and it’s quite tedious, actually, to put a floppy [disk] in and do all that stuff because we’re in a society now where we want things fast and quick. You want to take advantage of all of these records that are on YouTube, where people have uploaded vinyls and stuff like that. It allows you to move very quickly. The Sample has also become an incredibly fast sketchpad for people laying beat ideas down, and then you can move that project into the bigger devices. You could bring it into the live, you could bring it into the XL. We’ve seen that with people like Jermaine Dupri just making endless beats on the Sample, putting down a lot of foundational ideas and then taking them into the studio and grilling them up on the bigger devices. Then, I’ve got people like Dibia$e who are in the lo-fi beat battle scene who are going up on stages and just ripping live beat battles with this. When you think about it, there are all of these scenes that are going on. You’ve got the studio scenes, you’ve got the electronic scenes, your doorless jammers, then you’ve got the finger drumming scene, and then you’ve got the whole lo-fi beat battle stuff that goes on. So we’re really across the whole spectrum now.

What do you think it was about Akai’s legacy products that created a lasting impact that you wanted to bring back?

When you think of Legacy and Impact,they were really cutting-edge devices of their time. You could even say that about the SP1200. When the MPC came on, it allowed people who necessarily couldn’t play an instrument to express themselves. You could sample from these records and actually make music from other people’s material by finding samples and building drums. Outside of that, if you weren’t a drummer, you could actually imitate what a drummer is doing by sampling kicks and snares and stuff. It ended up creating its own genre, and that’s also on the electronic side. So bringing out the Sample, it was really about looking at what people loved about the original lineup of the MPC 60, the MPC 3000. They love the color, they love the aesthetics, but they also love the limitations, right? So, with the Sample, we made sure there were limitations there. It doesn’t do everything. It makes you think. “If I sample this, I can resample it, then chop it up, and then move that from a pad,” so it takes you on a different journey. I think that’s what people loved about it as well. Size, price, portability, nostalgia, and the instant gratification when you touch those pads.

In a world where digital production and AI are thriving, where do analog tools like the MPC Sample fit?

It’s funny because when I think of analog, these are technically digital units, but what they do has more of an analog feel. Spending time around the Fruit Loops (FL) community, you have people like Metro Boomin and Ty Dolla $ign, who have slowly merged into the MPC line, doing all of these beats inside of that. Many of these guys started on FL, and they’ve now gravitated towards the MPC Sample. Just to feel and touch a piece of hardware and really engage yourself in the process of an instrument more than anything. For me, DAWs still serve a purpose, but they’re more of a digital 24-track for tracking out your beats and vocals. We were seeing a lot more newer, younger sample-based producers who may be creating their loops in FL and Logic, doing all the instrumentation, then sampling it back into the MPCs and then going on that beat-making journey using the pads and all of the new technology.

When did the conversations about bringing the MPC Sample to market start?

Maybe about a year and a half ago. It was a very quick project because we knew what we wanted; it was about finding the right specs without over-specing it. What you don’t want to do is turn it into something that becomes overwhelming. You want it to be instant. You want it to do something extremely well, and that’s sampling. This is a legacy sampler at its finest. Every button we looked at [and asked], “Do we need that button? Why do we need it? Does it serve a purpose?” That’s one of the things that you’ll find. We were very focused on a chop button. You’ve got five different variations of how you want to chop. You don’t want to chop that sample, hit chop again, and it goes back to the original melody or loop, whatever it is.

You mentioned how Pete Rock, Jermaine Dupri, and a lot of people texted you after they saw the actual product. Did you have any particular producers test out the product during its development?

We do a lot of testing ourselves, but also get people like Dibia$e involved because he comes from that Dilla-era type of beat-making. We connected with the right people, but when we launched that picture, it took on a life of its own. It was literally lightning in a bottle because everything you could imagine about launching a product was executed effortlessly, from the recreation of a past advert. I took that picture back in October. We had a whole collection of the vintage MPCs in one of our offices. I put it on the floor, put the sample on top, took a picture, and I was like, “Do you know what? If we put that picture up online, we’ll shut the world down.” As we started rolling on the marketing, I started looking at vintage Akai adverts from the 1980s, and there was a great advert that had this blue cloth behind it, and we were like, “Let’s recreate that and use that picture.” It was the first time we announced a product before it had a launch date. I don’t know anyone who’s ever done that before. That one Instagram post went viral everywhere. It was absolutely crazy.

What is it about the Akai brand and the MPC, even from the adverts you had mentioned, that continues to inspire the reactions from the public?

Passionate conversations. The brand is a culture. It’s embedded into the DNA of music. It’s a part of everyone’s journey. Every producer that has started in a basement has started his career on an MPC of some sort and has gone on to make some of the biggest records of all time. Any record that you listen to over the past 35 years, the foundation of that record has been made on an MPC of some sort. So, it’s engraved in people’s musical DNA. As new waves of producers come in, they do their research. They go, “Oh, what was he using back then?” And then they discover the MPC. Then, that generation is introduced to the one, the G2s, and then the Sample. So, we’re constantly looking at ways to connect with new audiences and the original audience. Last year, I brought Roger Linn on stage, and we had a panel with Jermaine Dupri, Brian-Michael Cox, Just Blaze, Jimmy Jam, and Roger.

And it was really interesting because they were like children around Roger, [asking] how did he design this, talking about the LinnDrum. We were talking about the drum beat from “Juicy Fruit,” and Jermaine’s like, “Where did you get those sounds from?” Roger said this great line. It was like, “It’s you guys that make this product what it is. You make it sound the way that it does.” If you think about a lot of these producers, they all had their own identity. I was with Teddy Riley when we launched the XL, and the most ironic thing about being in the studio with Teddy was that when he made some beats in that room with the XL, they sounded like Teddy beats. It wasn’t an MPC beat; it was a Teddy Riley beat that he could have done on a 4000 or whatever, but it’s his trademark sound of how he uses the device. It’s the same with Dre. It’s the same with all of them. They have a signature sound that shapes whatever comes out of those outputs. How Pete would chop up records, his ear for how we would chop certain samples, only he could do that. The same with Premier.

Prior to the MPC sample coming to market, was there any clamoring from producers looking for a newer take on the XL or a new MPC model?The XL came out first. We went from the Live III in September to the XL. To tell you a bit of backstory about the live three, ’cause they all lead onto each other. The MPC Live III, the standalones that was on the market, have been around for nearly eight years. The processing had improved, so we knew people wanted to do more with them. We’d released stem separation on the MPC. We were doing partnerships with Native Instruments. People wanted to use plugins and instruments, so it wasn’t just for beat making; it was evolving into an instrument. People were making beats, plugging in MIDI keyboards, and really taking advantage of these devices’ capabilities.

Super successful, massively successful. Then we launched a flagship in January, which is really the studio centerpiece and the pinnacle of all MPCs. A dedicated button for every feature, inputs, outputs, and USB-C for tracking your beats. Big 10-inch color screen. And that’s when we got Teddy involved. You know, when you have a moment in your career where you can’t quite explain how you got to that point? That’s what it was like with Teddy. Flagship MPC on top of the world, Teddy launching this with us, and him sharing his whole timeline of all of the music he’s ever made on an MPC. That was a great segue of us going to National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM). For two years now, I’ve led the creative division of NAMM, where my vision has been to create a space for one day only, where we bring in all the producers everybody loves, and they perform on the stage. The first time we did it, I had Zaytoven come down. We had Marco Polo, Jermaine, Brian, Jimmy Jam, Roger; we had all of these different artists performing. This year, Teddy, Araabmuzik, and Drumma Boy performed. I had the best of the best on that stage because they all want to be a part of the brand. They all grew up on the brand. The brand means so much to them. So my role is to bring this to the community and let them see their heroes on a stage where everybody in the room has a passion for music, beats, production, and the culture Akai stands for.

You just mentioned producers from across four decades. What’s it like seeing those various generations come together at the forefront and celebrate the MPC?

With one platform. It’s quite amazing because when I was watching this online, you had Erykah Badu. You had Pete Rock, Jazzy Jeff, and Just Blaze. And then, on this side, you had DJ Chop Squad from the newer generation. We had a lot of the finger drummers and a lot of the house producers as well. Everyone could see a part of them in this device. It was like I used to make jungle on the 950 samplers, then you’ve got the younger generation. It was like, “I’ve always wanted to try an MPC; this is the perfect one for me to use.” It ticks every box, and I see all my heroes using it. For us, it really solidified that 40 years later, the brand is still on top of the world. It’s all built on passion, innovation, communities, artists, and the producers. Technology – that’s what brings it all together. I spend a lot of time traveling. If I see an opportunity to bring somebody on an MPC, I’ll get on a flight and fly 10 hours just for one meeting, just to put that device in front of them, because that one person could inspire another 200 people just from that. For example, Fred Again is absolutely doing insane things with the MPC Lives. Playing stadiums, 80,000 to 100,000 people. Completely different way of working than a sample-based producer. He’s triggering videos live, clips, and loops, and crazy stuff. So for us, seeing all of these different types of producers, artists, and performers crossing boundaries and barriers with different music genres is very rewarding.

When people look back 10 years from now, what do you hope they’ll say about the MPC Sample and its place in music production history?

Looking at the amount of records they made on it, it was probably one of the best investments they ever made, because it could have brought them into the music industry. It could have got them into beat-making, which took them on a journey. I think for a lot of the newer generation, it’s going to be the first instrument that introduces them into the world of Akai and the culture that the community has created. I think for the more established producers, it’s something that they will cherish; it’s a throwback to the past.