Michael Williams Jr., popularly known as Mike Will Made-It, is the CEO of Ear Drummers Entertainment. Besides being behind hit songs like Rihanna’s “Pour It Up” and Beyoncé’s “Formation, he was the executive producer of albums for Miley Cyrus and the mastermind behind Kendrick Lamar’s “Humble,” according to Forbes.
His journey in the music industry started when he convinced his father to let him drop out of school after one semester at Georgia State to focus on beat production because he was becoming popular in Atlanta. He learned beat-making as a boy experimenting with his sisters’ keyboard to formulate beats. He did this with his dad, who was once a DJ. At age 14, he convinced his dad to purchase a $600 Korg Electribe drum machine to further his music career.
In his early days in the industry, he collaborated with up-and-coming artists such as 2 Chainz, Future, Lil Yachty, and 21 Savage. Also, he went to radio stations himself to premiere records and became known for his producer tag. Soon, he was able to up his fee from $500 a track to more than $2,000.
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“They believed in me as a producer,” Mike Will Made-It told Forbes. “Miley, she was the first artist to make me an executive producer on her album [2013’s Bangerz]. And that was a major pop album. It was amazing.”
In 2013, he struck a deal with legendary producer Jimmy Iovine to launch Ear Drummers Records. Through this new record label, he formed the hip-hop group Rae Sremmurd, producing the duo’s four albums. This included the hit single “No Flex Zone” as well as the Black Beatles, which topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart and led to the viral Mannequin Challenge in 2016.
His exploits as a music producer have not only exposed him to the world as one of the best, but he has also accumulated an estimated fortune of $40 million from his music production catalog and publishing fees over the last two years.
Now the music producer is turning his attention to the real estate sector in Atlanta, hoping to replicate his success in music there. According to Forbes, he has spent around $20 million on real estate investments. He acquired a warehouse on Joseph Lowery NW Boulevard and opened the Wxllxm Culture Center.
He also purchased a more-than-10,000-square-foot property next door and has five acres of land on the block. Mike Will Made-It further hopes to build a commercial building with condos and a music studio but he stressed that it all comes down to “finding the right partners that want to invest.”
