Key Wane Tells All: The Stories Behind His Biggest Hits

Dwane Marshall Weir II is a 22-year-old student at Tennessee State University, studying Arts and Sciences. He's also the beatmaker behind one of the year's biggest rap songs, Meek Mill's hit "Amen."

"People see me on campus, like, 'You're the dude that did 'Amen'!" says the producer better known as Key Wane. "I'll get out of class and there'll be this kid just waiting to ask me questions. It's kind of crazy. At the end of the day, I’ll never let it get to my head. I’ll stay humble about everything. I don’t act like I’m better than any other student. I’m just a regular student blending in with everybody else. I just be doing music.”

His success in music doesn't make it easy for Wane to blend in, but he'll be graduating this December, so it won't matter for long. But for now, it's a complicated existence: “It’s stressful for the most part. I want to make beats all night, but fuck, I got to get up and be ready to go to class at 8 and sit through an hour long lecture. It’s even worse when you get up and you got ideas to make beats, but you keep looking at the clock like, ‘Shit.’ You don’t want to be late, you don’t want to be absent."

We spoke with the young producer about some of his most important tracks and what it's like balancing schoolwork and his new day job. Wane has produced for a variety of artists, including Big Sean (one of his earliest collaborators and supporters), Tyga, and Roscoe Dash. Despite that, Wane sees the advantages of staying in school. "It teaches me how to handle things with time, how to be on time. It teaches me how to multi-task, how to do more than one thing at once. I’ll be doing a term paper and making beats."

Wane's currently working on new tracks with Drake, Jhene Aiko, and even putting in work for Beyoncé. Although it's clear that the best is yet to come, he's focused on the immediate future. "I just registered for my cap and gown," he says about his upcoming graduation date. "Just got to finish up these last credit hours and I'll be ready to go."

As told to David Drake (@somanyshrimp)

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Album: Dreams & Nightmares
Label: Maybach Music, Warner Bros.

“I made that around the same time I made ‘So Long,’ because that was during that Christmas break. It’s just like going through records in my momma’s basement, and I just came across some grooves, and I got this vibe. I made these piano keys and came across this riff and added some of my own creativity into it, and added some drums, and hit up my nigga Tone and Sean, like, ‘Let’s go to the studio. I got this cold-ass beat I did.’ They heard it like, ‘Damn, this is kind of sweet. We going to record a reference [track] to it.’

“They recorded a reference, and everything was all good. Niggas was fucking with it. A couple like months later, when I went to LA, Sean was like, ‘I fuck with the beat, but I really don’t fuck with the reference like that.’ I remember meeting Meek Mill in New York that summer—that past summer—and I remember he’s like, ‘Yo I’m a big fan of ‘Memories.’ That’s like my favorite song from Sean.’ When he found out I produced it, he was like, ‘Give me your contact, let me give you mine, I want you to send me some beats.’

“I was thinking, ‘Cool, Sean don’t want to use it, who else would want to use this beat man? This is a really good beat.’ I was like, ‘Man, Meek Mill would go ham on this.’ It has to be something different too from what he’s putting out. I sent it to him, and literally like a couple days later he hit me up like, ‘This is about to be my single.’

“He played that shit for me over the phone right before I went to class. It was crazy. Then I got a phone call, like, ‘They about to put it out.’ We just got the business situated. The Jahlil ended up adding his 808 to it, because my kick was hitting hard like it’s supposed to, and he just added the 808, and that was that.

“I think CNN has a blog or something like that. They called me, and was asking me questions about how I felt [about the controversy with a Philadelphia pastor]. That was dope. Damn, CNN? That was kind of big. I told them I felt that people were blowing this out of proportion. We’re two people who believe in God. Right at the beginning of the song, he’s like, ‘I just want to thank God.’ I guess people just looked that over and just automatically wanted to say everything negative about the song. Nothing is bad about the song man. The song put me in a better place, and that’s like all in God’s hands. I don’t see where people are getting this bad vibe from it when it’s really helping people out.

“Just happy people like it. My family loves it. Everybody loves it. Sean likes it, like, ‘Man, this is a really good song.’ It’s Top 10, it’s just like it was the biggest single of the summer. I’m just like, in awe that I was responsible for that. I was just really thankful that God gave me this gift and blessed me to use it correctly for all this to happen man.”

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Album: Hall Of Fame: Memoirs Of A Detroit Player
Label: G.O.O.D. Music, Def Jam

“I think I went out to L.A. He flew me out there to work on his mixtape and his album. This is like March or April, sometime around then. When I got to the studio, he had recorded a reference of a song. It was like, ‘Man I think this could be a really big song, make a beat to it.’ I was in the studio, and he texted me the voice memo, and I kept listening to it, and he was like, ‘Man, make it with this type of bounce. Make it like a really big song.’

“I had recorded some steel drums over it, and that was the beginning. I had like a kick and some claps—this is like same-day everything. It was just forming ideas, me and him. He’s a great writer, and there were a lot of people in the studio. It was just bouncing ideas for the record. It was just a skeleton, and Sean was like, ‘Shit, let’s get some of Young Chop’s drums on here.’ He threw his 808s and some high-hats on it, and we kind of had a skeleton at that moment.

“I remember for months, I would work on the beat like every other day ever since I left L.A. I went back to school and just kept working on it. He hit me up, was like, ‘Yo man, add some new stuff to the beat. I was the beat to be bigger, it’s about to be a really big song.’ I just started added more sounds to it, added some keys to it, a bunch of different strings to it, just to give it this more, like, this feel. Like this epic, stadium type feel. I just wanted to give it this type of emotion, and I just added. I would just add stuff to it like every other day. Whenever I had free time, I would just listen to it and want to improve it.

“We went to the studio, not too long ago. This was about last weekend, just came from L.A. working on some sessions with some writers. He hit me up like, ‘Before you go back to school, I want to finish up ‘Guap.’ When I got off the phone with Sean, Sean’s manager hit me up like, ‘’Guap’ is about to be the first single for Sean’s album.’

“We all went to the studio that night, and he was like, ‘Let’s work, let’s finish up this ‘Guap.’ I was like, ‘I already recorded a new version of ‘Guap.’’ He’s like, ‘You did?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, a couple weeks ago.’ I played it for him, and usually Sean, he wants everything to be perfect, and that’s what I fuck with about Sean. He wants everything to be A1, and that’s dope. I was thinking, ‘He might find something in this song that might need to be changed.’ I was ready for that. Then he heard it, he was like, ‘Hell yeah, this shit’s dope. Let’s load this up and get to finishing this track.’ We just added some extra stuff, chopped up some things at the end, and that was it.

“At first it was nothing but those steel drums. I had did some claps in the background, some kicks, and Chop’s 808, and I added the strings and some keys and all the big instruments at the end. It’s just a great outcome. That was the first day I met Chop too. We just be in the studio. We cool. That’s my little bro.”

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Album: Detroit
Label: G.O.O.D. Music, Def Jam

“Matter of fact, Hit-Boy made the original version of that beat, but he gave it to Justin Bieber. That’s cool though. That’s a big album placement to me. Sean was like, ‘I really need another beat for this.’ I just re-made a whole nother beat, and it just seemed like a supremely great response on that too. It took me a minute to try and recreate that beat, because I didn’t want to listen to the ‘Right Here’ joint, because I didn’t want that to confuse or distract where I wanted to go with the beat. I just didn’t listen. Every other week I just tried different ideas, and I came across it and added some drums. Then No I.D. gave me some great insight on how to do the drums on it. Everything just came out great. I really enjoyed that process, because I got to hear insight from No I.D. on how to make that song sound good production wise.

“I met J. Cole in the studio months earlier. I don’t if that song was recorded at that time—I think it was. But yeah, I met J. Cole several months ago. He’s pretty cool.”

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Album: Careless World: Rise of the Last King
Label: YMCMB/Universal Republic

“That beat so old, I can’t honestly remember. I remember when he told me he wanted to use it for his album, I was like, ‘Damn, for real? You want to use this beat? That’s my super old beat.’ I made that when I was just starting to make beats on like, computer programs. When he reached out, he said he wanted to use it, so I went back in and beefed it up with some of the knowledge I had acquired over the years just making the beat. He had his producer add a couple of things to the second part of the song, and Busta Rhymes came in.

“The majority of the beat man, that was just an old beat. It was really good—I remember that was when I started using pianos in my songs. That beat was old, and when he picked it, I was surprised because it was so old, and I was like, ‘Damn, he’s really fucking with my old shit, so that must mean my new shit is cool.’ My new shit started getting on right now."

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Album: Driving 88
Label: N/A

“Nigel Mack from Universal, he talked to me like, ‘Yo, this kid Rockie Fresh, he’s blowing up. We’re going to try and do a song together.’ Gave me his email, we linked up. I remember I came home for Christmas break—this is last Christmas. I was working on beats, and I just woke up one morning, my mom was at work, and I had my little set up in the basement for the time I was there. I just was working on some keys and some drums. Recorded a hook—I didn’t have much equipment to record a hook, but I did the best that I could, because I was only going to be at the house for a couple of weeks, and everybody was asleep. I woke up early, I woke up like 6, 7 o’clock, and I just really wanted to record this idea.

“I recorded my little idea, then I sent it to Rockie, then Rockie hit me back like, ‘Man, I really want to record this. My mixtape come out in a couple of weeks, this is about to be one of the best songs on it. He recorded it and put it out, and niggas loved it. It was like a really good response. Me and Rockie, we working on some shit too, still.”

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Album: Detroit
Label: G.O.O.D. Music, Def Jam

“I remember I was recording—this was like a weekend—I was going ham. This was last fall. I remember I was just making a whole bunch of tracks over the weekend. I remember I was just working on some keys. I crafted that out, chopped some drums up, got the drums straight, and I recorded this hook on it, and I sent it to Sean. Sean like, ‘I’m fucking with this.’ Months later, he recorded it, Wale hopped on it. The first time I ever came to LA, he played it for me. I lost my mind. I was like, ‘Shit, this is sweet.’ We later finished it up in my LA trip that I spent that whole month when we made the ‘Intro.’

“We got some guitars to play on that, we got some extra added keys played on there, on top of the keys I played. We just finalized it. It was a great time. Around that whole August, a lot of the stuff I did on Detroit, I kind of completed that month there. It was a great time there. I got to sit through the whole creative process of the mixtape. Got to participate and work on the album too. It was a great trip.”

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Album: Black Thoughts Vol. 2
Label: YMCMB/Universal Republic

“I remember I didn’t have class. I was in Boyd, in my dorm, during the beginning of the school year, and I was just working. I was just thinking of this hook. ‘It’s a celebration, bottles by the cases.’ I just kept saying this shit to myself all day. I went back to my dorm—this was when my roommate was there. He left, and I was just making this beat loud as hell in my dorm, probably got a fine—I don’t remember. A couple niggas in the dorm were like, ‘Man, we want to rap on it.’ I was like, ‘Damn, this shit is kind of good. I just don’t want to put this out like that.’

“I sent it to Tyga, and he was like, ‘I’m about to make this my single.’ He got the Game and Mario on it, and it was my first—outside of ‘Memories’—my first really big song. I wrote it. I wrote a portion of it, so then, that shit leaked, but it was already out. It was a good step into the door, and I’m glad people got to recognize the talent, and the sound, and just the feel of the song. I’m glad that I was part of the responsibility.”

Album: Detroit
Label: G.O.O.D. Music, Def Jam

“The same process of how ‘Guap’ was, was how this was. He was on the road recording a reference to it. He texted that to me. I remember I was in class, and I listened to that shit in class. I got out, I went to the crib and made that beat. I sent it to him and he was fucking with it, and I think he recorded it while I was in school. When I came out there during my trips to LA, he played it for me, and then we got Jhene on there, and I put some vocals on there. That’s how that really took place. I just made that at my apartment. Just made some keys, made some drums, just really kept it smooth.

“I really like smooth stuff, stuff that make you feel good. Everybody wants to feel good. Feel calm, cool, and comfortable at the end of the day, so I really feel like I like making stuff that sounds calm. I just like making stuff that sounds good.

“I just made the beat and I just be like, ‘How would somebody else really listen to this? Let me think of everything that’s coming out and think of how I could fit too. Y’all making these type of beats, let me try and not make those types of beats.’ Make something different, something smooth that kind of connects on the same level as everything else. My thought process of making beats is just making sure everybody can relate.”

Album: Black Thoughts Vol. 2
Label: YMCMB/Universal Republic

“Yeah, I made that around the time I dormed at Boyd at Tennesse State too. This was like at night. I woke up, and just started playing some chords. I was in a really sleepy mindstate, so I really can’t remember how I made some of it. I remember I woke up, just got the computer on, going through some chords, grab some strings. I was sleepy as shit, but I wanted to make a beat. Add a little 808, some echo and snare on there. There really wasn’t too much with the drums. I remember when I started sending beats to Tyga my sophomore year, really all the beats I did for him, even the one I did on his album, I sent in two folders, and he picked all of them beats progressively. I remember I wrote my first hook and verse for Tyga, and that was on a song called ‘Drink the Night Away.’ That kind of went to ‘Hypnotized’ and then ‘Don’t Wake Me Up,’ and then ‘Potty Mouth.’"

Album: Detroit
Label: G.O.O.D. Music, Def Jam

“‘Higher’ was dope. ‘Higher’ was cool man. I actually wanted to use ‘Higher’ for myself. This was right before the mixtape came out, I went to LA for like a month. This was this past August. August 7th to like the 20-something. Something like that. On my way there on the airport, I was just going through songs in my iTunes. I came across this John Legend song. It was the intro to his first album, called ‘Prelude.’ I thought it would sound so sweet if chopped up right. I chopped it up and put some drums on it. I did all of that in the airport, and in the airplane I was just thinking of hooks. I was like, ‘Man, I ain’t going to use this.’ I went to the studio that night and let Sean hear it. He was like, ‘Dude, this shit cold. This shit about to be my intro for <em>Detroit</em>. Damn, thanks Key Wane, you came in the clutch.’

“Days passed, and we wanted to beef it up, so we got some live instruments on it. Some bass, Kevin on the strings, just all a collective process. We just turnt up. The response was crazy. I knew people was going to fuck with it, but I didn’t know people was going to fuck with it like that. It’s just an idea I had on the airplane and then beefed it up. Just involved ideas of others and turned it into something great man.”

“I don't really [use live instruments that often], but lately I’ve been trying to get more into utilizing those instruments. Not just those computer, supremely those type of computer-based instruments. Get that live feel. You write it out, I write it out, you play it out, you hear it, you play it back. Like that. I like live stuff, and I’ve been a fan of live classical stuff since I was a kid. Just get guitars to do stuff. Acquire those sounds that I can’t get. Just all of that. It’s just great. Just to really like see my music that I produce is living out a dream.”

Album: 2.0
Label: N/A

“I remember Sean hit me up—this was a minute ago. He was like, ‘I’m about to be out in the studio. Roscoe Dash going to be in there, he’s probably going to help me with some writing with one of these hooks probably. If you got some beats, bring some through. Come out here.’

“I had made a beat one night like at 3 o’clock in the morning before my flight that following day, and I let him hear it in the studio that night, and he was like, ‘Man, I want to use this.’ A couple days later, French Montana hopped on it, and it came out. That was really it. Nothing too big behind that record. It was one of those where he was in the studio. It was one of my throwaway records.”

Album: Finally Famous Vol. 3: BIG
Label: G.O.O.D. Music, Def Jam

“This was before my junior year in college, so this was around summer of 2010. I had just turned twenty, I was working this shitty-ass job at this car wash. I wouldn’t say shitty, because it got me through the times, but it wasn’t somewhere I wanted to work, because I was making beats and stuff. I remember I was at a lot of the sessions for Sean’s Finally Famous Vol. 3 mixtape, because they were recording downtown, and I was always downtown.

“I remember one morning—I just remember it was a Sunday morning—I had all my equipment set up in my momma basement, because I was home for summer break from college, and I was just going through beats, and I just made it. The only thing I remember from that day is it was a Sunday morning, and I woke up and made it, and it took me a good hour to make it. I saved it, and I was just like, ‘I’ll play this for Sean when I see him, before I go back to school.’ I remember I went over to his grandma crib, and we was just chilling. We was watching TV before he had to go to the studio, and I was like, ‘Man, I’m going to play you some beats.’

“I was about to click this one beat, and I thought that was the name of it, but I was like, ‘Damn, let me figure this out.’ So I clicked the track to the left of the track I was intending to pick, and it was that track, and Sean was like, ‘Oh shit, start that over. Start that over.’ And he was like, ‘Damn you got to give that to me.’ I gave him the track, and I remember before I left to get my car to go back to school—like I literally went back to school that next day—and he was like, ‘Man I’m about to make this like a really big song. I really love this song. It’s going to be a good record.’ It turned out to be a really timeless, just good song.”

Album: Black Thoughts Vol. 2
Label: YMCMB/Universal Republic

“That was one of the beats I had made around that same period too. I was really working with sending tracks to Tyga. I was kind of making stuff that was really melodic. It seemed like he was fucking with a lot of the melodic stuff I was doing, so I kind of just stayed in that area were ‘Hypnotized’ and ‘Drink the Night Away’ and stuff like that.”

Album: Finally Famous
Label: G.O.O.D. Music, Def Jam

“That was one of the greatest days, because I was considering quitting my job at the car wash that I was talking about earlier. I used to work there like every other summer. I was like, ‘Something has to pass.’ I was praying everyday. I just believed. I knew God sees me working hard, and then I got a phone call one day from the label, like, ‘We’re using ‘Memories’ as the intro to Sean’s album. Send us over the stems, we’re going to switch a few things up, and we’re going to send you some paperwork.’ I was just supremely hyped. I don’t know how old I was. I told myself—I always set these dates and goals—but like, ‘Man I would just love if before my 21st birthday, I get an album placement.’ Two weeks before my birthday I got the phone call. It was like speaking positives into existence. It’s some real shit man. I just prayed everyday. That was my first placement.

“It’s just basically a continuation of where Finally Famous Vol. 3 ended off. It’s great that he got to expand on that on his first album, which was really just dope to me.”

Album: Tell Ya Friends
Label: S.L.A.B.

“I made that in Boyd too. Recorded the hook and everything. All this stuff is so old. It’s crazy thinking about all this came about. I remember Sean was on tour, and I think they ran into Chip, and Chip gave his email to my homie Zeno, and was like, ‘Send me some beats.’ I sent him some beats. I later ended up meeting him at the studio, and we talked about the record. It was just crazy, just like we’re two niggas out here grinding. We made a really good song, and we got more great shit on the way too. That was one of my fun songs I made. I made it on campus in my dorm. I made a lot of the songs on that list in my dorm. That’s crazy.

“Chip is like a really cold nigga with the bars. I just fuck with it. I’m happy that song came out. I think there’s something unique about his flow.”

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Album: Finally Famous Vol. 3: BIG
Label: G.O.O.D. Music, Def Jam

“That was a beat I made for an artist named Suai at the moment. I had made that beat in my dorm room when I was at Tennessee State. I think it was my sophomore year. I met Suai in the studio one day. I always go home for break, so I met her during the break I took off from school. I was just playing her songs. She was supposed to release a project called Almost Wrote You A Love Song and she had wrote a song, but didn’t have an actual beat to go with her lyrics. When I met her in the studio, I played it for her. She was like, ‘Wow, this beat really fits everything that I wrote about. I’m going to let you hear my reference.’ She recorded her reference.

“It was actually a good song. It was actually her song. Sean heard it, and was like, ‘Man, I’m really about to like, turn it into a big record.’ Sean came into the studio, recorded his vocals, and put it out. It was one of those types of records. It was a real big record though. It was really good. It was on the radio. I remember I was leaving the mall one day. I was in my Honda Civic, all beat-up, and I put the radio on, and ‘Almost Wrote You A Love Song’ came on, and it was crazy.’

“Suai is a great R&B singer. I forgot where she was signed to—I think Universal/Motown. She was just a really good singer. She’s from Detroit, she’s a great writer and performer. She’s just really unqiue. Her vocals, her voice is unique.

“No I.D., that came in—I wasn’t able to be a part of that. He created what he created. I just remember me and Sean was on the phone, and he was like, ‘Yeah, No I.D. added some sounds to ‘Almost Wrote You A Love Song.’ Just gave it this feel.’ I was like, ‘Cool, cool.’ When I heard it, it just blew my mind. It was my first ever big co-production with a legend. Then, just to sit in the studio and talk to him and work with him is even crazier.”

Album: Finally Famous Vol. 3: BIG
Label: G.O.O.D. Music, Def Jam

“I made that the Christmas—the December before that summer. I came home for Christmas break from school. I can’t remember if it was 2009 or 2010, but I know it was somewhere around there. I remember I came home for Christmas break, I set my shit up in the basement when I got home, and I was about to go over to my nigga Tone crib—SayItAintTone, the guy who’s featured on the track.Tone is like a friend of the family. I knew him around the same time I met Sean. I was like 13 years old. We went to high school together too.

"I had recorded the beat, and I was like, ‘This shit kind of sweet.’ I recorded a reference, and my first four bars was like, ‘I got that Bape all in my closet, BBC all in my closet, 10 Deep all in my closet.’ I was just like freestyling, and this nigga Tone’s like, ‘Dog, the pocket you rapped on was so sweet. I’m about to make that pocket like a song.’ I was like, ‘Shit!’ and I gave him the beat, and it turned into a great get-fresh record.

“The song didn’t even get recorded the same day. I gave it to Tone, and Sean heard it, and it’s just a great song that we all did together, that we all worked on together."