Mike Will Made It

Michael Len Williams II (born March 23, 1989), known professionally as Mike Will Made It (often stylized as Mike WiLL Made-It) or simply Mike Will, is an American record producer. He is best known for producing trap beats for several Southern hip hop and pop artists on commercially successful singles. His credits include "Black Beatles" and "Powerglide" by Rae Sremmurd, "Mercy" by Kanye West, "No Lie" by 2 Chainz, "Bandz a Make Her Dance" by Juicy J, "Pour It Up" by Rihanna, "Love Me" by Lil Wayne, "Body Party" by Ciara, "We Can't Stop" by Miley Cyrus, "Formation" by Beyoncé, and "Humble" by Kendrick Lamar. He embarked on a career as a non-performing lead artist in 2013 with his debut single "23" (featuring Miley Cyrus, Wiz Khalifa and Juicy J), which peaked at number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100. His 2017 follow-up single, "Rake It Up" (with Yo Gotti featuring Nicki Minaj) peaked at number eight on the chart. He has released six mixtapes and one solo studio album, Ransom 2 (2017).

Outside of production, he founded the record label EarDrummer Records as an imprint of Interscope Records in 2013, which has signed acts including Mississippi-based hip hop duo Rae Sremmurd and late Atlanta-based rapper Trouble.

Williams was born in Marietta, Georgia, the youngest of three children; he has two older sisters. His father, Michael Williams Sr., is a former IBM executive who worked as a club DJ in the 1970s. His mother, Shirley Williams, a former bank loan officer, was once in a gospel group, singing for Dottie Peoples. He grew up in a musical family as his uncle was an accomplished guitar player and one of his older sisters was a drum major in the Olympics. While growing up, Williams was athletic, participating in many sports, including basketball, baseball, and football, with dreams of becoming a professional athlete.

His life also centered around a love of hip-hop music. Williams first developed his talent for music by re-playing popular instrumentals that he heard on the radio while he and his friends would freestyle to them. In several interviews, Williams has mentioned, in particular, re-playing the instrumental for "Still Fly", a popular song by the southern rap group Big Tymers, on a Casio brand keyboard, and has also mentioned re-playing "Young'n (Holla Back)" by New York rapper Fabolous on production equipment at a local music store.

At age 14, Williams began to develop his own beats on a Korg ES1 beat machine, which his father bought for him as a Christmas present from the local music store Mars Music. As he became more accomplished, he also began to use production equipment, including the Korg Triton, the Akai MPC1000, the Yamaha Motif, and the Roland Fantom. By the time WillIams was 16, he was spending time at local recording studios in Atlanta, trying to shop his beats to established artists. He was initially ignored, but eventually one of his beat tapes made its way into the hands of Gucci Mane, who then invited WillIams to Patchwerk studios, an Atlanta recording studio.

Upon graduating high school, Williams enrolled at Georgia State University to pursue undergraduate studies mainly due to pressure from his parents, but chose to take a hiatus and eventually dropped out after several semesters, with a 3.1 GPA, to focus on his music career.

In an interview with XXL, Mike Will said, "Gucci Mane was the first [major artist] to ever rap on my beat." Mike Will first met Gucci Mane at Atlanta recording studio, PatchWerk Recording Studios, and upon introducing himself and giving Gucci Mane a CD of beats, Gucci Mane proceeded to freestyle over each of the instrumentals. He then offered Mike Will $1,000 for one of his beats. The two artists began releasing songs together, such as "East Atlanta 6", and a number of songs from Gucci Mane's mixtape, No Pad, No Pencil. After developing this close relationship with Gucci Mane, he began working with other big-name Atlanta rappers such as Future, Waka Flocka Flame, Rocko, and 2 Chainz.

In 2011, Mike Will released his first single, "Tupac Back", performed by Meek Mill and Rick Ross, from the compilation album Self Made Vol. 1. The single was released on April 5, 2011, and peaked at No. 31 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs Billboard chart. This came after Mike Will submitted some of his beats to an A&R for Rick Ross' Maybach Music Group label.