Producer Mike Dean on Working With the Weeknd and What’s Next

When I FaceTime with Mike Dean, he tells me he’s coming off the longest break from music of his career — a whopping three weeks. The prolific producer took time off after embarking on the After Hours Til Dawn North American tour with the Weeknd, where he played 84 sets in 42 dates, both opening for the Toronto superstar and then playing during his set. But Dean is already back to the grind, mixing songs with A$AP Rocky the night before we speak. Was the session for Rocky’s highly anticipated Don’t Be Dumb album?

After a short pause, Dean says, “I dunno, man,” and chuckles. 

Working with some of music’s biggest artists teaches one how to keep things close to the chest. The accomplished producer was born in Houston and befriended the late Pimp C in high school. He helped a young Selena Quintanilla record her first song, and made his name as a producer with beats for UGK and other Rap-A-Lot Records artists, as well as acts like Tupac, Tha Dogg Pound, Nate Dogg, and Tech N9ne. 

Eventually, he began working with Kanye West, mixing his first two albums and serving as a co-producer on five more projects. His keyboard and guitar playing, knack for arrangement, and post-production acumen implanted him into the nucleus of Kanye’s classic formula, influencing further collaborations with a who’s who of modern music: Beyonce, Jay-Z, Madonna, Frank Ocean, Justin Bieber, Travis Scott, as well as the Weeknd, whom he provided production for on the Toronto icon’s smash Hurry Up Tomorrow album. 

This year, Dean has been submitted for 10 Grammy categories for his work on Hurry Up Tomorrow, including Album of the Year, well as Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and Rap Song of the Year for “Timeless” (featuring Playboi Carti). “I’ve never won an Album of The Year, Record of the Year, or Song of the Year in my life, so hopefully this year with Abel, we fuckin’ smash all those records,” he tells Rolling Stone. 

During our nearly hourlong talk, I get the sense that Dean is too at ease at age 60 to get broken up about Grammy snubs. Even with all his accomplishments — he’s been nominated for 19 Grammys and won seven) — he was a down-to-earth presence throughout our conversation, polite and unassuming with a humorous tinge of self-deprecation. He played me a song from his upcoming 420-commemorating 426 instrumental album, and, of course, got some pulls from a bong midway through. It felt like I got him in his element, just chillin’ out in between mixing sessions. 

That go-with-the-flow nature has carried him throughout his career, as he tells me he’s made it a point not to compromise his sound or work with artists he doesn’t care for just for platinum plaques and Grammy nominations. It turns out, those nods came to him anyway. 

Along with working on some “top secret” music to close out 2025, Dean has his eye on next year, looking forward to the Grammys, dropping 426 most likely on April 24th of next year, and devising “solo Mike Dean shows at small venues,” where he plans to play music and jam in front of intimate audiences during the first six months of next year. And beyond that, he tells me he’s ultimately vying to get “further away from working with artists,” making more synth music, instrumental projects, and compilation albums where artists jump on his beats.

Dean talked to Rolling Stone about The Grammys, keeping the TV on during recording sessions, being divinely connected to music, and a whole lot more. 

Do you have an outlook on the Grammys? Any expectations from your 10 submissions? 
I try to have no expectations, so I’m happy when I win, especially after I’ve been through a lot of ups and downs with the Grammys. I’ve won a lot and lost a lot of big ones. Whenever Travis didn’t win on [Astroworld] was a crazy one, but it’s not really a popularity contest, I guess it’s more about art and stuff. 

Do you feel like the Grammys are a sufficient annual record of the best music? 
I think it’s a bucket list thing [that] every musician, artist, [and] producer has in their life. After Kanye, we had a big Grammy run. I’ve had seven wins. It’s like winning the Super Bowl of music. I’ve never won an Album of the Year, Record of the Year, or Song of the Year in my life, so hopefully this year with Abel, we fuckin’ smash all those records. 

What did you do when you won your first Grammy? 
Oh man, we ran around like we won a ball game. I think it was College Dropout, right? 

Yeah, 20 years ago. 
Best Rap Album and Best Rap Song. Wow. I remember I got kicked out of the Grammys one time. Whenever Herbie Hancock beat Kanye’s Graduation for Album Of The Year, I started being a dick about it. 

You got kicked out, or did all of y’all?
I did. I was just like, man, “Fuck this, blah, blah, blah,” and then people started walking backstage, and I started walking backstage without a laminate, and they were like, “Nope.” Yeah, it was pretty funny. I was pretty drugged up back then. 

You spoke about your work with the Weeknd. How are you feeling about your output in the past year or so? 
I’m great. I had the chance to open for him on his first four legs of the tour in the last year. We played 42 shows in 24 cities, and each day I played two shows. 84 shows, so it’s been a busy summer. It’s been great. 

How do you feel about playing in a stadium versus an arena from a sound quality aspect?
If you got the right sound guys, it’s great. We have really good guys with Abel and then we have a lot of people that do quality control on the stuff, different producers that come out and give input. The trick with stadiums is getting all the seats to sound good. Because there’s echoes and there’s delays, and if they delay and time everything perfect, it sounds great. But if they screw it up, it starts sounding like what we call two shoes in a dryer. Just random. That’s what we say about people with bad beats.

What are some of your lasting memories of working with the Weeknd on Hurry Up Tomorrow? 
Whenever you actually sit down and write a song together, I’ll just start playing chords on the synth and you’ll start improvising and it’ll turn into a song in two, three minutes. That’s how “The Abyss” started on this album. A few of the songs started like that. That’s the magic. I’ll hit a chord and he’ll start singing and then that’ll take me to the next chord and just follow each other around like that.

What’s he like in the studio? 
The nicest guy in the world. He’s the most patient, cool artist in the studio. Everybody else that I’ve worked with has been pretty wild with it. He’s more understanding that we’re humans and that we have lives and shit. 

As a producer, do you have a time that you prefer to be in the studio?
Just whenever. I like mornings and afternoons, really. I’m falling asleep by 10 p.m.

Do you remember when you first met the Weeknd? 
I first heard of him when I was working on Watch the Throne. I was walking down Prince Street in Soho [in New York] and somebody said, “Have you heard the Weeknd?” I’m like, “What are you talking about? What’s the Weeknd?” And then about a year or two later, I ended up at Rick Rubin’s house with him working on Yeezus. He worked on a lot of songs on Yeezus. [I’ll] never forget they had him in a closet recording vocals, the smallest little space. He was just in there doing his thing.

But then we worked on [the Weeknd’s] “Tell Your Friends” around that same time, I think. Then we were just acquaintances. We’d see each other. When I started doing my live streams in 2020, I think I ended up doing a remix for him, “Starry Eyes.” He was watching one of my live streams one day [and] just DM’d me. He said, “You should open for me on tour,” while I was on the live stream. [I was like], “Oh, this is fucking awesome.” Then we finally got together, I think I’d probably been on his mood boards before, references that they use to make stuff. It’s good to move from the mood boards to the studio.

I know that he’s said this album is a goodbye to the Weeknd and he’s going to go about the rest of his career as Abel. I was wondering if that sense of finality played into the creative process at all? 
Yeah, I mean, some of the wording of the songs make it sound like he’s going away, and it wasn’t something that [I] personally was aware of through the whole album. I was, but I mean, it’s not like he sits down and says, “Okay, A, B, C, I’m going to stop being the Weeknd on this date.” I don’t really know what his plan is with that. I just make the music, you know what I mean? 

You played yourself on The Idol. What was that experience like?
That was fun. It was like a good practice run for me and Abel for being in the studio. You get to see him act the opposite of how he really is in the studio. I was kind of an asshole to him all the time. I was just always making little remarks about him and shit. The rat tail, his little jabs here and there. It was kind of fun jabbing at him. It was all freestyle.

Would you consider other acting roles?
Yeah, that’d be cool. I mean, I don’t know. I just acted as myself, just smoked weed and made music. I want to make films more than act. I think I’d rather be directing or scoring stuff. I worked with Sam Levinson closely on the scoring, and it was really cool to work with a director like that. 

I was going to ask if you wanted to do more scoring down the road. 
Yeah, if the right thing comes along, because scoring can get intense with the changes and the edits and making the director happy. When I’m making music, it’s just me and the artist. You make a song, you’re done. A movie? They might [say,] “We changed this edit. You got to go back and change this.” A lot more chasing your tail.

What would your movies be about?
More suspense? I’m a big David Lynch fan. I love all the Twin Peaks stuff, shit like that. 

Would you be involved in writing them or moreso directing? 
I mean, kind of the whole creation thing. I think I have a couple of friends that are into filmmaking, we talk about making shorts and stuff here and there. I’m always so busy. I never really have time to do much [extra]. 

Are you currently working on the 426 album? 
Yeah. A couple of instrumentals that I’ve used are probably going to end up on the album. Let’s see, where’s this fucker at? Let’s see if I can find it. [Plays a song from his laptop.] Something I did for Alexander Wang for his fashion show. Then he ended up sticking with the other music he had, so now I got this, so that’s great. He pushed me into making some shit that I would never make. He did all my clothes for the last tour. 

What did you tell him about how you wanted it to look? 
Louise Donegan, my wife, [has] been working on my look for a couple of years, like the cloak thing. We just showed him a bunch of references. Are you familiar with Rick Wakeman, the keyboard player from Yes? He used to wear the big capes and shit. That was one of the big references that I gave him, just like a dark synthlord. 

What compelled you to want to be more cognizant of styling? 
My wife, she’s my creative director. [She] pushes me to have concepts and plan things. Without her, I’m just a total freestyler. I even started planning my shows. I did three legs of the stadium tour, just improvising my show. Every night. I would just have 30 things that I could play and as I go [decide], “Let’s hit that one.” It’s really fun to freestyle in front of 20-30,000 people. Such a rush for me. But then I noticed where I started planning the shows and programming where the songs came in, I could play a little better because I wasn’t thinking about what’s going [next]. 

When you’re improvising, what is it that determines where you shift? 
Just a feeling. It’s like it connects with God, powers of whatever, and it just comes through you. I had a psychic one time, she said, “You’re connected. Everything in the world has energy: Money has energy, politics has energy, music has energy. You’re connected directly to the portal of music energy,” which nobody hardly is. So I was like, “Oh, that makes sense.” 

I just sit down and stuff starts coming. It’s almost like something you played in another realm or another life or something. I never really thought about it, but it’s [cool] because there’s different realms supposedly, or different dimensions and parallel universes, all that shit. Maybe that’s where the music comes from. Maybe it’s already been written somewhere else, and it flows to you. It’s a combination of probably 50 years of music theory training and learning every song in the world, and then kind of like being your own AI. 

How often do you jam? Do you jam every day? 
Yeah. After tour, I took [three] straight weeks off. I didn’t play at all, which was cool. I just chilled. I just started getting back in the studio a few days ago. 

So when you’re touring, are you usually not making beats as well or…?
Yeah, I have a studio bus I travel in, so I have my full studio. I can do full mixing, mastering. I mastered Teyana Taylor’s album. Then on the road [I] started a few songs, future projects. 

Do you seek rare instruments when you travel?
All the time. I bought two really rare guitars on this tour. I was born in ‘65, so I bought a ‘65 Strat. It is a really nice thing. Candy-apple red. It’s beautiful. It’s the best playing guitar I ever played. I bought a ‘65 Jazzmaster on tour. I bought a Dean guitar, the one that [Dimebag Darrell from Pantera played]. Big pointy-star guitars. 

What do older instruments have that newer instruments are missing? Guitars, for instance?
Better wood. This guitar is called a pre-CBS. CBS bought Fender in 1965 and they started changing from being super handmade to a more mass-produced guitar. So mine’s called a pre-CBS, which makes it way more valuable and a better playing guitar than the new stuff. It’s interesting. 

What inspires you to make music these days? 
Just kind of legacy. I think just something to leave behind. Just keep building on the catalog and the legacy and leave as much music as I can behind. Got to be remembered like Beethoven and shit. That’s the goal. 

What do you want your legacy to be?
[That I was] just a real musician, not driven by the industry or by money. I’ve always moved with what I felt and sometimes not what was the best money-wise, you know what I mean? I just follow the art. I could probably have a lot more number one records if I followed trends instead of trying to make [my best music].

Working with people you might not want to work with, things like that. 
Yeah. I try to be the reference. I don’t try to reference anything. That’s always my rule. A lot of mixers you’ll see in the studio with this CD and there’s references. I want to be the one with the CDs on people’s desks. Fuck that. If you’re the reference, then you can’t do any wrong. Whatever you do is cool. 

Do you ever get inspired by different mediums or art forms? I was speaking with Conductor Williams and he was saying he’ll watch movies and be inspired to make beats based on it. 
I keep the TV on, whether it’s the news channel or an old sitcom. Right now I’m in this zone where I just put on Tubi and find some Seventies martial arts and put it on. When you’re working on a song and you keep the volume really low in the studio on your TV, sometimes you’ll hear a noise or a chord or a thing [and] you’re like, “Whoa.” I’ve done that forever. People used to think I was really strange when I worked on the big boards, the hundred-channel boards. I’d always keep two channels with the TV on there, turn it [down] really low. Sometimes things will just happen, synchronicity, and you’ll be like, “That’s cool. I could do something kind of like that.” Or you’ll hear a string theme from the fucking Twilight Zone. 

Can you think of any songs where you could point to that kind of moment happening? 
I mean, all of Dark Twisted Fantasy was from Holy Mountain, that movie. Alejandro Jodorowsky [is] a crazy filmmaker. That’s what we watched the whole time we made Dark Twisted Fantasy, on loop, no sound, for two years. 

Where do you think you’ve gotten better as a producer over the years? 
Finishing a song. Like saying when a song’s finished, and not adding too much onto it. Not overproducing, I think not overproducing is probably what I’ve learned the best.

How did you get a better handle of when something was overproduced? 
From mixing other people. You’ll see that song get to the point of diminishing returns, as they call it. When you’re working late night on a song, you keep adding shit, and it’s just the same type of thing, I think. You see people struggle to put stuff in the song that shouldn’t even be there. One of our old rules was if it’s not loud enough to really make a difference, just take it out. If something’s in the background, you have to struggle to hear it. It’s not really needed. 

Are there any artists that you haven’t worked with that you want to? 
There’s a few that I don’t want to say their names yet, but yeah. I’m working with Ellie Goulding. Raye has reached out to me recently. [Doing] some A$AP Rocky work. He was over last night. We were working on some shit. 

Was this for the album that everybody’s anticipating? 
I dunno, man [laughs]. We worked for two days, just working on some mixes for him and shit. 

Do you think hip hop is in a good place sonically? I hear a lot of people complaining about too much sampling, too many derivative beats, but I feel like there are people doing cool stuff.
It’s in a weird place right now. To me, it’s in a transitional stage. A lot of the super distorted stuff is getting really popular. And that’s cool to a point, but it’s just ridiculous to me where it sounds like somebody turned a tape up 10 [decibels] just to blow it out for the fuck of it. 

When I was coming up engineering, you learned from people around you. Trial and error. I feel like now there’s not enough trial and error. People are looking at [mixing-tutorial Youtube channels] Pensado’s Place or Mix With The Masters and just following what these people say like it’s the gospel. 

What’s your relationship like with Kanye these days? 
We’re cool. We’re just not working. There’s no intense beef or anything. If we saw each other, we’d probably hug and say hello and then keep moving. Yeah, there’ll be a time when we probably get back together. Who knows when. That’s a heavy question.