Mike Will Made It

was thinking to myself how sci-fi mainstream rap & r&b production has become recently and it could be mostly attributed to this guy

i like the comment (forget who) htat this guy became big once everybody started taking molly and stopped taking lean

it sounds like lean AND club drugs

yah... i think i just made that last part up

Doesn't Noah "40" Shebib use a lot of low-pass filters in his stuff?

true, but not nearly as well. he kinda uses them to box things in whereas mike will uses them to open them up. like my favorite trick of his is where he'll bring the lowpass in on a pre-chorus and then open it up as the chorus comes in and it makes the chorus sound that much bigger.

hah okay i can see how this lowpass filter is a nice signature once you know what to listen for

also i love it when people start dropping science and put names on production techniques etc., good stuff

yeah he basically uses it like a dance producer does, to create a big contrast between loud and softq

it's too bad for jeezy that he was way ahead of the mike will curve with "way too gone" cuz that song would be a way bigger hit now

― J0rdan S., Thursday, March 14, 2013 3:22 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah that's still my favorite Mike Will track, at least on a production level. it actually jumped back on the charts for a second last summer, six months after it initially got some spins, right after "No Lie" blew up. "Bandz" started getting on the radio around the same time even though it'd been out forever at that point, so it really felt like after the 2 Chainz single got big it was like 'ok everyone re-release their Mike Will tracks.'

love 'way too gone' so much, still reminds me of twin peaks every time

One of my favorite producers at the moment for sure. Trance-riffs are definitely key. Also taking up this sound in a really post-Lex Luther moment to my mind, so it still has those blinding ultra shiny Playstation synths.

Interview with Noz from last April - http://www.thefader.com/2012/04/30/beat-construction-mike-will-made-it/

People don’t even know that I got fucking four on the floor music

would like to hear

He put Gucci on the phone and Gucci was like “We gotta get in the studio, woo woo.”

So I was like “we can do this kind of shit in our sleep, this street shit. I’m about to test you real quick.” I played the “Turn On The Lights” beat and out of nowhere he was like [sings] “Turn On The Lights!” We knocked that joint out.

i love this

love that beat construction column

He put Gucci on the phone and Gucci was like “We gotta get in the studio, woo woo.”

― r|t|c, Thursday, March 21, 2013 9:24 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

'woo woo' is what ppl say instead of 'etc. etc.'

so mike will is saying 'we gotta get in the studio etc etc'

thanks for clarifying that

So I was like “we can do this kind of shit in our sleep, this street shit. I’m about to test you real quick.” I played the “Turn On The Lights” beat and out of nowhere he was like (sings) “Turn On The Lights!” We knocked that joint out.

i love this

― 乒乓, Thursday, March 21, 2013 8:23 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I wish rappers/producers would film more studio sessions. They could go back after the fact and show the initial reactions to classic joints.

xp preferred it how it read in joyful innocence tbh :(

He put Gucci on the phone and Gucci was like “We gotta get in the studio, woo woo.”

― r|t|c, Thursday, March 21, 2013 9:24 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

'woo woo' is what ppl say instead of 'etc. etc.'

manesplainin'

lol

hahaha

thats mike willsplainin actually

(sorry for being a killjoy i saw someone make that joke on twitter awhile back)

woke up w/ 'pour it up' in my head, soundtracking my dreams, wth

ugh that song sucks

weird that the youtube version seems to have been pitch shifted up even though it's from rihannaVEVO

i had a good run the last month or so of avoiding "Pour It Up" enough that it wouldn't get stuck in my head, had a relapse the other day ugh

that song is so good

i will not say i think it's bad per se but i am unable to enjoy it

bad experience with pouring it up?

certain Rihanna songs like "Run This Town" just have these endless woah oh sections that circle around in my head and put me in this miserable desolate headspace where i want to crawl into a hole and die

"We Still In This Bitch" is definitely the only Mike Will hit that's outright bad, though. even the beat sounds unfinished, like he just laid down a foundation and did nothing with it.

I'd be 100% down with pour it up if the whoa oh parts were excised

maybe fonkytiemz can do a 'refix' without those parts

Yes.

As in yes, that song is so good.

i might like "Pour It Up" more if it wasn't competing for airplay with "Loveeeeeee Song"

"Pour It Up" is a full banger

http://soundcloud.com/jay-r-neutron/poured-up

"pour it up" is amazing because it's kinda resolutely bleak and unbanging

it's rihanna's #phuckyofeelings swag shtick taken to a very extreme and unexpected logical conclusion

if her vocal delivery was even slightly more present or party-friendly it'd be very boring

like, she sounds completely stone cold sober and paranoid - not druggy paranoid, actual rational and thought-through paranoid - on it

also, constantly intoning "i still got my (more?) money" as if she's absolutely fixated on not spending it, not letting a single penny out of her pockets, regardless of all the expensive things happening around her

I like the idea that she's worried that one of these days the strip club or the car dealership or whatever will only take cash.

i think lex makes a good point but am just going to point out that that entire defense is the "looking at the club through smoke" aesthetic that you hate

my argument was that it's one of the only songs in this vein where the singer sounds sober not druggy?

it's better executed than whatever songs you're thinking of, anyway

i don't think it's quite the looking at the party through smoke aesthetic, although there are surface similarities. the weeknd sings from a position of vulnerability that he overcompensates for, lex is correct in that rihanna is just stone cold swag and dgaf.

theres sick production on this but not sure any of the songs are great, some good verses def tho

nothing is promised is a jam

all the Future ad libs just make me wonder if it would've sounded better as a Future song, it seems more suited to his voice than Rihanna's

Yeah he wrote it and it really just sounds like a future song w rihanna's vocals.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/11/how-mike-will-made-it

I did not know Swae Lee wrote "Formation"

pretty weird timing for a mike will super producer trend story...

The author seems a little out of touch. A lot of the piece reads like it could have been filed in 2013, just after Bangerz came out.

The angle to me feels like it could have been Will's commercial resiliency. Wasn't all that long ago ppl were suggesting Will had been rendered passe by DJ Mustard, but now it's pretty obvious which producer had the longer shelf life.

Also odd that the piece was written for readers who have absolutely no knowledge of rap music about a subject that only readers deeply interested in rap music would ever care about

but he hasn't really shown much commercial resiliency, "formation" aside... rae sremm album got pushed back after the single flopped. mustard prob has the bigger hit ("needed me") this year.

Still, Mike Will is just about the only ATL producer atm who seems to bring the best out of whoever it is he's working with.

what does that even mean

It means that whenever Future or Thug collaborate w MWMI they sound inspired, that all the new Rae Sremms have been great + MFN Right is a banger. The Rihanna song would have been better as a Future song but it's still good, and no, he isn't really charting atm but the spark's still there.

It means that whenever Future or Thug collaborate w MWMI they sound inspired

examples?

rae sremmurd have only ever worked w/ him so i don't see how they count

Rae Sremmurd count because they seem to be developing healthily whereas Future and Thug are sort of threading water atm. He brings out a poppier sound in them whenever they work together and I need more of that.

* them = future & thug

and the best new gucci is over a mw beat