Kanye West producer Mike Dean releases debut solo album '4:20'
Kanye West producer Mike Dean has released his first-ever solo album – you can listen to it below.
Dean has worked on past ‘Ye albums including ‘Graduation’ (2007), ‘808s & Heartbreak’ (2008) and most recently last year’s ‘Jesus Is King’. He also has production credits on records from Madonna, Travis Scott, The Weeknd and many more.
Yesterday (April 20), the producer marked the unofficial weed holiday by releasing his debut LP ‘4:20’ in full. Most of the material from the 28-track project was composed under lockdown and performed via Instagram live-stream.
“I produced all of my music really stoned. The overall vibe of the album is [Pink Floyd’s] ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ on molly or acid,” Dean told HipHopDX.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, he said: “I’ve been working on other people’s music for so long and not really paying attention to my own.”
He went on to tell the outlet about his “freestyled” Instagram performances. “Every day at 8:30 pm, I would just jam on the synths for 30 minutes. I’d answer a few questions, bullshit with my girlfriend,” Dean explained.
“I did the Instagram Live streams 14 days in a row. After the first 5 days, I was like ‘This is pretty cool.’ And I ended up having 7 or 8 hours of extra music.”