Dre and Kanye West started out as beatmakers. But lots of people can make beats; only a few beatmakers become super-producers. He has such a library of what he has created.
They began with a snare and a kick drum. The producers would play drum samples from different software files, each barely distinguishable from the next, at least to my ear, but Will knew immediately when he heard the right drum. Within half an hour or so, they had the basic drum sound down and began to work on the instrumentation. Roofeeo noodled around on a keyboard, playing airy, wheedling little melodies.
These spooky-sounding keys, such as one might hear on the soundtrack of a psychological thriller, are another Mike WiLL Made-It trademark. Meanwhile, back in the conference room, a young Ear Drummer co-producer named Shod had come up with a new beat on his laptop— shup-chuga-chuga-shup.
Shod, nineteen, is one of the many cousins of Will who are scattered around the country; he lives in Inglewood. When Will heard that Shod was getting into trouble, he got him into beatmaking instead. Will summoned Antney into the conference room, and both of them started scat-singing into their phones, using an app called VoiceNote to record themselves. They kept at it for ten minutes or so, until they had a couple of different melodic ideas, which they texted to Shod to work on.
Will was elated with the results. Then he got back to work. Mike Will was born in Atlanta in , the same year that Antonio L. Young Mike and the musical milieu around him grew up together. Atlanta also, crucially, can provide a protective environment that shelters developing musicians from the pressures of New York and Los Angeles. The twin poles of hip-hop history are New York and L.
The sound—grimy, ominous beats with psychedelic instrumentation on top, made with layered synthesizers—draws from an earlier style developed by the rap group Three 6 Mafia and the producer Lil Jimmy, as well as from the ongoing work of influential Southern producers such as Lex Luger and Shawty Redd.
Trap houses—so called because there is only one way in and one way out—are where crack and purple drank a codeine-based concoction also known as lean and sizzurp are prepared, bought, and sometimes consumed. It is the music of rebellion, as rock and roll once was—hard beats and raps calculated to drive any parent crazy. Mike L—Michael L. Williams I—one of fifteen siblings, bettered his lot by learning about computer networks during a stint in the Marines, in the seventies. That led to a job servicing I.
Because of his work with I. At first, Mike L was shocked to see how black people would hang their heads when they were around white people and not look them in the eye. In Cleveland, where he had been a d. Michael, born four years later, grew up in a split-level house, with a driveway and a yard, in a district where he and his sisters could attend an integrated school. Michael was the only male in the house. Shirley was a mortgage-loan processor, who sang backup for the gospel singer Dottie Peoples on the weekends.
In , when he was fourteen, Will went into the Atlanta branch of Mars Music, the now defunct chain. A lot of times, people are watching stuff to critique it. So the best thing for her to do is go out and perform it how she wants to perform it, her vision. I heard people say the problem was her sticking her tongue out. Basketball players do it. The people who are talking about it probably play around and do shit like that with their homegirls.
How would you respond to the people who felt the butt-slapping was upsetting because Miley is white, and the objectified dancer was black? Why is she acting like that? Miley got black girls on stage dancing with her. What that check looking like? Oh it sounds so good! And she fucks with anybody. You can never keep up. While these billion people are talking about this, these other billion people are talking about something totally opposite.
Next year, watch somebody else do something crazy on the VMAs, so they can get that much attention. I was like, Man, hold on, keep that, cause you might be able to kill that. Will has long sung the praises of fellow producers like Dre , Timbaland , Pharrell and DJ Toomp , but it's just as important to take your cues from the broader music world. I like The Smiths. If you look at my iTunes, it's… Bobby Womack for sure, but he's an old school player so everybody would think that one.
I like Beth Hart. Bon Iver. I listen to Cyndi Lauper a lot. The Flaming Lips. I pretty much got everybody in here, know what I'm saying? You got to play some different kind of music. Want to discover a world of new music? I listen to everything, Queen.
I listen to everything. As a producer, I feel like you have to listen to everything. Oh yeah, Pet Shop Boys. I like the production on Pet Shop Boys. I like The Smiths. Bobby Womack for sure, but he an old school player so I think they might, everybody would think that one. Beth Hart, I like Beth Hart. Bon Iver. I listen to Cyndi Lauper a lot. The Flaming Lips. You got to play some different kind of music.
The mix is crazy. I think the thing that transcends throughout the whole world, not only in the States, not only in the States and Canada, or not even only just North America. I could put on a beat right now and just try to see if my boy right there be bouncing. I might be playing a beat and be looking at him like this and just see if he going to bounce. This is the right beat. I just made this the other night. I did the first half of it and when the beat speeds up, my boy Wheezy, he sped the beat up.
He works a lot with Young Thug. Turn it up. We made it on the spot. We made it real quick for Young Thug and I feel like Young Thug was going to take it somewhere else and if it needed anything else we could add something.
He was working in the basement just grinding hard. Then we always just was inviting him to the studio when nobody even knew about him. Is there anyway we can take this and make it pop?
He just played some shit and it just sounded dope. I just added a clap. I never knew where to go with the drums and then Makonnen had put this song on there. That first beat was more rhythm that made everybody bounce and then that right there was like You might hear that melody all day in your head.
Those are the universal languages. You feel it. You feel the feeling, because you feel the pain in his voice. His cadence is, he has his own cadence. I want to change gears here. I need to play this, and we need to talk about it. Hell yeah. Swae Lee is amazing. Slim Jxmmi is amazing. I was moving around at the time.
They were at his crib working, and they were just telling me about them. They were humble kids, just really ready to win; really ready to work. This is the hood Backstreet Boys. This is the most ratchet that pop is going to get, period. Everything got to be next-level. They need pop looks. They got a sense of humor, they got swag; they got everything. That was the whole thing, when we were Now the whole team; our whole team is just focused on When I first met Rae Sremmurd, their name was Swae.
Rae Sremmurd is hard. Right, but there was a lot of people who It is a hit. At the end of the day, a 4TB drive is going to be bigger than a 1TB drive. At the end of the day, they already were 4TB drives. They already had the drives to goddamn go hard; all they needed was the equipment and a little bit of money and a little bit of time, and all they going to do is record, and the proof is in the pudding.
I get that feeling already from Give it up for the 4TB drives. I already got that feeling. We in Atlanta; what studio? You got a flight at six in the morning. Oh, this the beat you want me to get on? Alright, bet. Rap on that beat. Still, in , people still think that, and I wonder why that is? Certain people just think way in the past. Only other person you know from Tupelo, Mississippi is Elvis, so shit. Tupelo, Mississippi got rappers!
It was Rae Sremmurd. Yes, they made it that. We were just on our way to Coachella, and I was just playing beats in the car on the aux, and then Swae Lee and Jxmmi It was me, Swae Lee, Jxmmi Oz, you was in the car too, huh? You went the first year we went to Coachella?
We just mess around and freestyle. I might even freestyle with them, just throwing out different ideas. OK, ladies now Like on your iPhone. You go to voice notes. I had run into her one night. Get in formation. The next thing you know, she takes it and makes it a culture empowerment thing. Bigger than just females, a culture empowerment thing.
Then they called us to New York, to finish the production. I was just telling her different harmonies that I was hearing that she could add.
My different inputs, outputs, or whatever I felt the record could do. We were just going back and forth for a week, then she ended up We finished that song last summer, and she was going to put it out at Made In America [festival]. Then she was trying to debate, was she going to shoot the movie, or did she just want to Before it gets old to me or something, I just need to put it out. No, Jay just randomly hit me on an email.
We talk on email. He just randomly hit me. Peace to the guys. Salute big dog. It was in LA, and she was rehearsing for the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl was next week. She did it. She did exactly what she said. The exact dates and everything, it dropped, and it just broke. Everything just broke.
She broke the Internet, she broke the fucking cable, she broke everything. Jimmy Iovine was over there. Like, five billionaires. I never felt so little, or I never felt like I had so much hard work to do. Everything played back. Tahoe, Gucci Mane studio days, building my team. The Super Bowl is a milestone. We were always doing something. Then fucking I was just like, everything just played back. I went from just making beats, teaching myself how to make beats, to making beats, to trying to make the hardest beat, to trying to get a beat to an artist, to trying to get that song that I did with the artist on a mixtape.
Trying to get a song I did with another artist on an album. To then trying to make a hit record. Then, understanding producing, and trying to make sure my mixing and mastering and everything was forward pushing, and ass pushing.
Meanwhile, me and my engineer, any big project we have, we fall out at the end, every time. It never fails. His name is Jaycen Joshua, he works in LA. He mixes for Justin Bieber. He mixes for the biggest people. Turn the bass up. It never fails, until we get the song how we want it, and then it ends up sounding dope. All the way from auto steps, to teaching myself how to make beats, and everything in between.
Producing to understanding different things about music, and then boom. To see her go on the Super Bowl, and actually kill the performance with my favorite band, Coldplay. It was really like a dream. It just showed that hard work finally That would be crazy. We had to go all the way back to , and different stuff like that. I remember the first test we had. My teacher told us that was going to be the style of the test. You really expect us to know this is Beethoven? Go do your homework.
Usually a little bit different, and subconsciously that helped me on the production side. Knowledge is key. Give it up for Mike Will. Can you continue?
We were in the middle of conversation. She wrote all her lyrics for the most part, she just It was a real collaborative effort between me, Pluss, Sremm, and her. From there, it was really more about her family.
It was a whole collaborative effort and it was dope working with her because she knew exactly what she was looking for, she knew exactly what she wanted as far as the production side. Even when I felt like it was done, she wanted to add this, she wanted to add this, and when she thought it was done, I wanted to add this.
I wanted to ask you, how do you feel Yeah, I totally get it. You really just create this canvas and once you collab with an artist, then that artist paints on top of the canvas. When I was coming from Atlanta and the strip club and the teen club was the only thing that could get us out of A lot of people have not got out of that circle.
I barely go to the club. I might go to the club every now and then on some social type thing, but right now, I never knew about festivals and different things like that back then. It would have meant something to me because it was my creativity, but I was actually coming from nothing, I was just going to school, I had student loans, my mother was laid off, my father was a working man.
I was just trying to make it out of I always try to do the opposite and in a positive direction to help me or anybody else around me move forward in their life. What I always wanted from anybody to get from my story and I feel like my story is very well just starting. You do that. They respect the grind, they respect longevity, they respect consistency.
Never get comfortable. I was the boy. I never wanted to be that, I always wanted the next year to be bigger than the last year.
Just focus on that. Songs that might drop next year, but they might end up dropping this year. I actually just bought a new laptop, that was the first beat I made on it. It took him a couple weeks, he hopped on it. Then we put the song together and then we put it on the album. It was the last song that we added to the album. It just happened like that. I was just trying to get more and more money to get more music equipment so I could just make music, and get into the industry.
I just thought you just make a hard beat and hopefully one day it just sky rockets and it just fucking takes off. The music is like the creativity part. We need to push this song as a single. Even though I love this song so much, but I want to hear from somebody else, and hear how the next person feels about the song, how they connect with the song.
Yeah, man. It was a lot of things skipped in my story. I said a lot today, but it was a lot of hardships. I knew exactly my goals and what not. He just made a couple beats for this person, that person, this person.
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