I know what it’s like when you first come into the game and you’re just trying to figure out how to even work this damn equipment. It comes with time and the hours that you put in. Moving into the future, what will producers have to do to differentiate themselves? Will they need to come up with a signature style, for example? This person just landed with a UFO or some shit.’” All we knew is what we saw on TV. When we were younger, we used to just look at it like, “Man, this motherfucker is a star. Everybody wants to feel like they discovered something or they know all the ingredients. Even when you talk about consumer food, people want to know the farms that they come from. I feel like that’s just where the consumer is nowadays, period. Why do you think people are more interested in the nooks and crannies of how something is made these days? I’m going to need this person to mix it.” At that point, that artist is a hell of a producer and might not even know it. This artist might have known, “I need this writer, I need this person to play the keys. Women in Hip-Hop Give Each Other Their Flowers in Netflix's 'Ladies First' Documentary TrailerĪn artist might not just be an artist - he might not just be using his vocal and his lyrics. You’re manufacturing this product to be able to be distributed and go to retail. I’m looking at it like, “OK, this is all a product from a beat.” As a producer, you deal with the raw materials, and you are the supplier, and you are the manufacturer. I see it like the product supply chain, where it’s like: raw-material supplier, manufacturer, distributor, then retail and consumer. You had somebody like Quincy Jones doing major shit - if-you-know-you-know type of vibe. Back then, you had great producers, but behind the scenes. You know what I’m saying? Then, it switched over to the artist - the artists being the executives or finding the producers. Hell, it was even the DJs that were mixing records together and having people rap on it. There was a time where the DJs break the records, the DJs get the party going, the DJs have the battles. What’s your perspective on the producer’s evolution from the background to center stage? Where do you think it will go in the future? Today, hip-hop producers like you and Metro Boomin have become mainstream stars yourselves, in a way that feels different from how that might have happened in the past. That’s not all he had to say on what AI could do, where Atlanta is going, and how producers become icons. “You can’t create an AI me,” he proclaims. Williams is confident about his ability to create unique sounds in an era when big stars have their voices and styles mimicked by new technology. “‘You should start your own record label and put out hits.’” Williams went on to found Ear Drumma Records as an Interscope imprint in 2013, releasing music by his protégés Rae Sremmurd today he continues to oversee a broader production operation, including other producers, via his company, Ear Drummers Entertainment. “He was telling me, ‘Man, yo … you just keep giving away all the hits,’” Williams says. When he met Iovine, the storied music exec, at a Floyd Mayweather fight, Williams recalls that they heard his music everywhere, from the halls of the fight’s arena to its intermissions. “It’s crazy, when I first met Jimmy Iovine, I had 13 songs on the radio and shit,” Williams says over Zoom from a vehicle somewhere in Atlanta, the city where he got his start producing for Gucci Mane as a teen. By the time of his groundbreaking work on Beyoncé’s “Formation” and Kendrick Lamar’s “ Humble” and “DNA,” he didn’t even need the tag: He’d already earned the superproducer title that continues to define him today. His inescapable beat tag - a sultry coo of his professional moniker, Mike Will Made-It - punctuated Future’s breakout single “Turn on the Lights,” the early 2 Chainz and Drake collab “No Lie,” Juicy J’s strip-club anthem “Bandz a Make Her Dance,” Rihanna’s hit “Pour It Up,” Miley Cyrus’ controversial forays into rap, and countless other major records. It’s hard to overstate the impact of the five-year run hip-hop producer Michael Len Williams II began in 2012. The Future of Music Interview is a Q&A in which our favorite artists and producers share their vision of what’s next, weighing in on everything from AI to emerging scenes to the artists inspiring them the most.
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