Legendary producer, songwriter, and educator !llmind, tells the story of sending beats to Kanye and the moment he learned one had made the grade.
“It was one of those moments where preparation and opportunity meet”. At the time making five to ten beats a day, !llmind has a tireless work ethic. So, when the call from rapper Rhymefest that he was with Kanye and needed beats came through, !llmind was ready, sending dozens of beats for the session.
Full transcript:
“I think that was one of those moments where preparation and opportunity met.
In 2010, I created an album, and one of the rap features on that album was a rapper named Rhymefest. And then around 2011, he hit me up and he was like ‘Yo !llmind, do you have any beats? I’m with Kanye.’ And I was like ‘Absolutely!’.
Thankfully, I was prepared due to the fact that I’d just been making beats every day, you know, like five to 10 beats every single day, like non-stop, no sleep.
So I sent him like 30 or 40 beats, and then one of them ended up getting in the studio. Then he recorded it and you know, he texted me like ‘Yo, Raekwon just jumped on the song.’ And then he was like ‘Yo, Pusha T’s on the song. I was like ‘oh shit, this is actually happening’.
Diving into it too, I think what helped me in that moment was not overthinking. The beat that Kanye chose, I did not expect at all. Those melody and synth lines, I never knew were ‘Kanye sounding’.
From there, it was kind of like ‘okay, I’m headed to like the next phase of my career’.
