Alex Da Kid Talks About Mentors And Influences

Alex da Kid

London native and Grammy award winner Alex Da Kid began his journey into music production at the age of 19, attending Thames Valley University to obtain a bachelor’s degree in audio technology. While in school, Alex began forging relationships within the UK music industry, soon realizing that he also needed to establish himself in the United States. In 2008, he began making trips to the U.S. and quickly attracted the attention of top music executives. After working and ghost producing for top producers, Alex signed a publishing deal with Universal Music Group in 2009. As his workload became more intensive, he took on manager Marc Jordan (Rihanna & Jazmine Sullivan) and subsequently moved to New York. Since his move less than two years ago, Alex has already made a name for himself in the industry. After producing Nicki Minaj’s debut single, “Massive Attack,” he teamed up with B.o.B. and Paramore’s Hayley Williams for the hit single “Airplanes,” which peaked at #2 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and sold over 4 million digital singles to date. Alex collaborated with hip-hop master Eminem on the sequel to B.o.B.’s “Airplanes,” titled “Airplanes Pt. II,” and continued to work together resulting in the track on Eminem’s album, Recovery, titled “Love The Way You Lie” featuring Rihanna. This most recent hit spent seven straight weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and sold over 5 million singles to date. Additionally, the record went to #1 in over 30 countries around the world and the music video broke the YouTube.com record for the most views in 24 hours – 6.6 million. While Eminem and Rihanna burned up the charts through the end of 2010, Diddy released the Alex Da Kid-produced single, “Coming Home” featuring Skylar Grey, which was the first single off of his latest album, Last Train to Paris. Having sold over one million singles, “Coming Home” is Diddy’s biggest selling record to date, being used in countless movie and TV spots including a live performance before game four of the 2010 World Series. December also brought the release of T.I.’s No Mercy album, which included the track “Castle Walls” featuring Christina Aguilera. So far 2011 has kept Alex very busy with the release of two huge records: Lupe Fiasco’s controversial single “Words I Never Said” featuring Skylar Grey and Dr. Dre’s first single off of his long-awaited Detox album, “I Need A Doctor” featuring Eminem and Skylar Grey. Alex was also nominated for four Grammys including “Song of the Year,” “Record of the Year” and “Album of the Year” at the 2011 Grammy Awards and received a win in the “Best Rap Album” category for Eminem’s 2010 release, Recovery. Currently Alex is in the studio with Skylar Grey, the first act signed to his production company, Wonderland Music. With Grey’s first live performance having been alongside Eminem and Dr. Dre at the 2011 Grammy awards, she is definitely one of the most highly anticipated artists of 2011. There is a lot to come from one of the hottest young producers in music right now, so stay tuned… http://www.facebook.com/alexdakidofficial http://twitter.com/alexdakid http://www.myspace.com/alexdakidmusic http://www.youtube.com/user/ADKWonderland1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_da_Kid