Mike Will Made-It Started Out Making Beats With His Dad, A Former IBM Computer Engineer — Now, In The Last 2 Years, He Says Music Has Earned Him About $40M Alone

Mike Will Made-It has revealed that he did not understand how to make money from music when he first entered the industry.

The producer, born Michael Len Williams II, behind some of this generation’s top hits, fell into music by playing on a keyboard owned by his sister, Chonte. He created beats with his father, former IBM computer engineer Michael Len Williams Sr., Forbes reported. He later learned to play the saxophone, and by his early teens, his father bought him a $600 Korg Electribe drum machine.

“Inquisitive kid,” Michael Sr. said of his son, per Forbes. “He wanted to know everything.”

After one semester at Georgia State, he convinced his father he could put school on the back burner to pursue a career in the music business as a producer.

Mike Will Made-It recalls having no footing in his early days in Atlanta’s underground. He also had no management at the time, even during a breakout time for him thanks to producing singles including “Bandz a Make Her Dance” by Juicy J, “No Lie” by 2 Chainz, and “T urn On the Lights” by Future.

“This was a significant part of my career. I was hungry. I was like starving, literally. I ain’t have no management at this time,” he said during an interview with “DraftKings.” “I ain’t know nothing about the music business. I wasn’t getting no money off of music or nothing like that.”

His turning point began after working with artists like Rihanna for her single “Pour It Up” and Miley Cyrus to create “We Can’t Stop.” By this time, his fee had increased from $500 a track to over $2,000, notes Forbes.

“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.”

Between 2012 and 2014, Mike Will Made-It spent a lot of time with Jimmy Iovine, chairman and CEO of Interscope Geffen A&M at the time. He then signed his own label, Ear Drummer Records, to Interscope Records, which birthed Hip-Hop group Rae Sremmurd.

“I ain’t want to do anything where I was going to lose that so I was nervous… and then that’s when Jimmy was just telling me like, ‘Man, yo man, you can’t lose. You’re not a loser… Y ou can either learn or earn,'” Mike Will Made-It said on “DraftKings.” “That sh-t stuck with me… First artist we signed was Rae Sremmurd.”

He lived out the “learn or earn” philosophy. He says he’s made an estimated $40 million in the last two years from his music production catalog and publishing fees, as AFROTECH™ previously reported.

“I’m great,” Mike Will Made-It expressed, per Forbes. “I’m in a position I never imagined.”