YRB Magazine Shareholders in The Culture. Invest With Us! ™
By Melanie Castell
Bei Maejor is a 24-year-old triple threat ready to leave his mark on the music scene. The singer, songwriter and producer garnered a buzz for himself during his years in college, and it wouldn’t be long before the college grad would begin producing and writing for influential artists such as Trey Songz, Ne-Yo, Drake and Andre 3000.
Already a Grammy award nominee, Maejor’s next endeavor includes dropping his debut solo album. The R&B crooner talks to YRB about his album, his creative process, life as an undergrad and working with Justin Bieber.
YRB: You’ve worked behind the scenes as a producer and songwriter, what has propelled you into the forefront as a singer?
Bei: I started as a producer and a lot of the people I was producing for, like Trey Songz and T-Pain, would allow me to play song ideas for them. They would say that they like my song ideas, so when people I respected said that they liked my music it gave me the idea to start singing music of my own. I began playing my music for different people and everyone had a positive response. It soon became a passion and I just ran with it from there.
YRB: So take us back to your undergrad years at the University of Michigan. How did you go from being a full-time student to a producer gaining the attention of artists like Ne-Yo?
Bei: I went to college as a producer already, so during the weekends I would go out of town to work with other people. I would be in Vegas doing something and the very next day I would have to be in class. It was a different experience from other students at the school because I had a full-time career. Anytime you take on something that has a lot of responsibility, you grow and learn from it. That experience made me ready for a lot more things. Shout out to the kids in college right now because graduating is not an easy thing to do.
YRB: Did you start experimenting with music during your undergrad years?
Bei: No, a little before that. I was in high school and I started making beats and stuff. It became a career when I was in college.
YRB: So what was your major?
Bei: I double majored in communications and psychology.
YRB: And you graduated…Most people in your position would have put school aside.
Bei: Yeah, I know. When I started getting money, I started saying to myself that I was going to leave school. But honestly, it was my mom that kept me there. My mom already saw my success coming and she just asked me to promise her to at least finish school. So every time I would get to the point where I didn’t want to go back to school, my mother would say, ‘You promised me!’ It was one of those things that I just had to do for her.
YRB: You signed with Ne-Yo as a producer after college, how did this come about?
Bei: I met him through my manager who was on the scene for a while. He saw the growth of Ne-Yo’s career. My manager played a couple of my songs for Ne-Yo and he thought they were cool. I ended up remixing one of his songs and he liked it. When I graduated from college, Ne-Yo had opened up a studio in Atlanta and I was moving to Atlanta at the time. We met up a couple of times until finally Ne-Yo asked me to produce music at his studio. I worked under Ne-Yo as a producer for a year; we made great music together and I’m still cool with him today.
