The Lion King, Shottas and Paid In Full are films that do not have any similarities outside of sharing a fight scene, but contrasting movies show the range of producer/songwriter/artist Bei Maejor’s personality. The University of Michigan alumni escapes the prototypes and tag lines of being an urban producer by completing projects for Walt Disney Pictures to penning records for Chrisette Michelle or producing music for Bun B.
As of late, Bei has been creeping into listeners headphones with singles like “Trouble” and “Lights Down Low.” The Grammy nominated artist had a brief conversation with Singersroom on categorizing music by ethnicity, following greats like Stevie Wonder, and not saving the best music for profit.
Cultural Elements on Music Genres… I wrote that when I was looking at different artist based off of like the music that they typically do. Who we put in Pop, who we put in urban, who we put in R&B/Soul. On Justin Bieber’s new song he is like rapping, but they put [it as] Pop. Then Nicki Minaj’s “Starships,” which is a dance song, they put [it as] rap. It’s just interesting on how the world classifies music, there are cultural elements that go into it as oppose to just listening to the song.
Dropping Free Music or Saving for the Future… I don’t look at it in the sense that I’m looking to make money. I’m just making it and if people like it they like it. I haven’t thought of it in the sense of “AH Man” I got to save this so I can make off this and sell this. I just was doing what I like.
Locking Down a Style… Being upside down, I have been seeing other artist doing [it], but I created that. For my “Trouble” video I was upside down in a contraption with the blood going to my head. I go hard for the upside down thing, that is something I made. My upscale movement is a new sound I created blending different worlds of dance and Hip Hop. All the drums are urban and Hip Hop, but then I took different sounds and put it in. I just gave it that name. I wanted to explore it on that project and let people hear what it is.
I just let music be what it is in terms of if you are inspired by something I think that is where music come from; just writing from what’s going on in your life at that point. It is an accurate reflection of where I’m at right now.
Perfection Takes Time…I do beats and do all the music so for me it takes a longer time because I am perfecting everything. The basic idea is fast, maybe like twenty minutes, but getting everything right and all the music, it could take days to make it the final product.
Black Artist Scared of Soul Songs… I don’t know if that is true. People like Maxwell come out with a CD and people like it. I thing people like good music; I don’t think black people only want to hear one type of music. I think people like to hear good music.
Personality Define by a Film Collage…Lion King, Shottas, Paid In Full. A whole lot of random types of movies. All those movies influenced me in different ways.
Following Steps of Artist/Songwriters/Producer…Definitely Stevie Wonder, R. Kelly is one of my favorites of all time. I actually got a chance to work with him on T-Pain’s CD; it’s called “Center Of The Stage.” T-Pain is also another person in terms of him producing, writing for your people and himself so all of those people influence [me].
