Still a teenager, Dean was invited to join Parliament‑Funkadelic when their keyboard player Bernie Worrell left to join Talking Heads, but instead he chose to play for local group Selena y los Dinos, because, he recalls, “It made more money!” He became the group’s musical director, and also acted as a producer for singer Selena while she was still a young girl, before quitting in the mid‑1980s.ĭean continued working in piano bars, and in the late 1980s was a member of a local group called Def Squad, in which he tried samplers and drums machines, and started making hip‑hop. In his teens he graduated to playing hard and prog rock in school bands, and also soul, funk, blues and country in cover bands.
He tried his hand at saxophone, piano and bassoon at a young age, became a serious classical piano player and was part of the school orchestra. It was, in fact, not far from Houston, Texas. The story of how Mike Dean went from an unknown Texan to someone who helped reinvent hip‑hop, trap and pop music, and who now is on his way to becoming the next synth god (see box) starts in 1965, when he was born, in his own words, “in the middle of nowhere”.
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At the time of the interview, West and Dean were still hard at work on Donda 2, but all the latter will say is, “We’re back at full speed! Firing and hiring engineers every day!” Out Of Nowhere The fact that West does not allow his collaborators to talk about their work with them is a loss to the world, as there surely are endless fascinating stories to disclose. However, I can’t discuss how I work with Kanye. In many cases Dean had a very central role, and he earned all his five Grammy Awards through his work with West, including Best Rap Song for ‘Ni**a In Paris’ (2011).ĭean comments: “I’d say that Twisted Fantasy and Pablo are my favourites of the albums I did with Kanye.
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In those days everybody flew there to work with me.” The mixtape was called Get Well Soon, and Dean has played a part in the making of almost all West albums to date, including 2003’s The College Dropout and Graduation, Late Registration (2005), Watch The Throne (with Jay‑Z, 2011), Yeezus (2013), The Life Of Pablo (2016), ye (2018), Jesus Is King (2019) and Donda (2021). The album was enormously influential, winning a Best Rap Album Grammy Award, coming in at number one in dozens of Album of the Year and Decade polls, and going platinum in the UK, the US, and several other places.ĭean is best‑known for his long association with West (now Ye), which began in 2002, when, recalls the protean producer, “Kanye first came to my house in Houston, where I had my studio, to do his first mixtape. Mike Dean had his hands all over both albums, with his credits on Dark Twisted Fantasy consisting of bass, cello arrangement, composer, engineer, guitar, keyboards, mixing, piano, producer and soloist.
Those were some of the best sessions I can recall.” We were in Electric Lady Studios for a few months for the latter album, working around the clock. “I particularly like what we did on Scarface’s The Untouchable album, and on Kanye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. When asked what he considers the highlights of his long and varied career, Dean selects just two projects out of thousands. As a producer I understand that.” West Worlds I may later go back a couple of times for 30 minutes each, but that’s it. He manages all this because, he admits, “I’m a workaholic, a little bit, yes. In short, Mike Dean may be the single most multi‑faceted and busy man in the American music industry. Dean’s credit list on Allmusic has an astonishing 1750 entries across a wealth of different genres, including hip‑hop, trap, pop, computer music, heavy metal, prog rock, film scoring, symphonic rock and so on. In addition to the above, he’s also an artist, songwriter, guitarist, keyboard player, composer, remixer, plug‑in designer and more. Some would argue that being constantly stoned makes it harder to keep one’s brain lucid and well‑balanced, but in Mike Dean’s case, the only thing that’s crazy about him is the spread and scale of his activities. Wikipedia simply has him down as a “record producer” to distinguish him from Mike Dean, the Premier League referee, while others have called him “hip‑hop’s biggest stoner”. While Mike Dean’s list of his activities may already sound quite impressive here, a cursory glance at his track record makes clear that he’s in fact dramatically understating what he is up to. Instead, I mix a little, I produce a little, I engineer a little, I master a little, and so on.
“I could not imagine being just a mixer, and all you do every day is to mix, mix, mix. With an extraordinary track record as producer, songwriter, musician, mixer and remixer, Mike Dean is a one‑man music industry.
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