Mikaelin 'Blue' Bluespruce is an American, New York City based mix engineer and record producer. He has worked with notable artists of many different genres including: Solange Knowles, Nas, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Skepta, Dev Hynes, Marsha Ambrosius, Alloe Blacc, Common, & Prince Royce.
Blue was one of the primary recording engineers, and the mixing engineer for Solange's critically acclaimed A Seat At The Table album, [1] which debuted at number one on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. [2] Blue was awarded a Grammy certificate for his work on the Cranes In The Sky, which won a Grammy for "Best R&B Performance" at the 2017 Grammy Awards. [3]
For The Hamilton Mixtape , Blue mixed songs for Hip Hop artists Nas, Dave East, Common & Black Thought, as well as famed soul singer Alloe Blacc, and Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator and star of Broadway's Hamilton. [4] The mixtape also debuted at number one on the Billboard Top 200. [5]
Blue moved to New York from Seattle at the age of 18, as a DJ with aspirations of becoming a studio engineer. In 2006 he graduated with Honors from New York University's program for Music Technology, and worked as an intern at Jay-Z & Just Blaze's Baseline Studios. After doing years of freelance work in studios such as Quad and Sony, he took the position of Head Engineer at Lounge Studios, in midtown Manhattan.
tUnE-yArDs - I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life
Lin-Manuel Miranda - Almost Like Praying
Sir The Baptist - Saint or Sinner
Various Artists - The Hamilton Mixtape
Solange Knowles - Saint Heron Compilation
Solange Piaget Knowles is an American singer, songwriter, performance artist, and actress. Expressing an interest in music from an early age, Knowles had several temporary stints as a backup dancer for Destiny's Child, which featured her elder sister, Beyoncé Knowles, among its members, before signing with her father Mathew Knowles's Music World Entertainment label. At age 16, Knowles released her first studio album Solo Star (2002). Between 2004 and 2008, Knowles had several minor acting roles, including the direct-to-video Bring It On: All or Nothing (2006) and continued co-writing music for Beyoncé and former Destiny's Child group members Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams.
Marsha Ambrosius-Billups is an English singer and songwriter from Liverpool, England. She embarked on her musical career as a member of Floetry. Ambrosius released her debut solo album Late Nights & Early Mornings in March 2011. She also has a brother, Marvin Ambrosius, a television presenter in the United Kingdom.
Floetry were an English R&B duo comprising Marsha Ambrosius and Natalie Stewart. The group recorded two studio albums, one live album, and sold over 1,500,000 records worldwide. Formed in 1997, Floetry started on the performance poetry stage. They have worked with many US musicians and artists including: Jill Scott, Queen Latifah, Michael Jackson, Common, The Roots, Bilal, and more founders of Neo-Soul.
Mike Elizondo is an American producer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. A protege of Dr. Dre, Elizondo has worked with 50 Cent, Eminem, Carrie Underwood, Fiona Apple, Mastodon, Ry Cooder, Skylar Grey, Twenty One Pilots, and Lin-Manuel Miranda, among others. His songwriting credits include "In Da Club" by 50 Cent, Eminem's "Just Lose It" and "The Real Slim Shady", "Family Affair" by Mary J. Blige, and Carrie Underwood's "Cowboy Casanova". A Grammy award-winner and five-time nominee, he has twice been nominated in the Producer of the Year category.
Greg Wells is a Canadian record producer, songwriter and audio engineer. He has worked with Lin-Manuel Miranda, Kid Cudi, Adele, Michael Bublé, Rufus Wainwright, John Legend, In The Heights, Taylor Swift, Crash Test Dummies, Jazmine Sullivan, The Greatest Showman: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, Ryan Tedder, OneRepublic, Ariana Grande, "San Quentin Mixtapes, Vol. 1" with David Jassy, Pharrell Williams, Pink, Theophilus London, Dua Lipa, Keith Urban, Celine Dion, Jake Wesley Rogers, Missy Elliot, MIKA, Twenty One Pilots, Carrie Underwood, Deftones, Katy Perry, Jamie Cullum, Aerosmith, Weezer, as well as Sir George Martin, Quincy Jones, Elton John, Burt Bacharach, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and the Count Basie Orchestra.
Solo Star is the debut studio album by American singer Solange, released by Columbia Records and Music World on December 26, 2002 in Japan and January 21, 2003 in the United States. It debuted and peaked at number forty-nine on the U.S. Billboard 200 and number twenty-three on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums in early February 2003. The album produced two singles: "Feelin' You" and "Crush". "Feelin' You" reached no. 73 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip Hop Songs chart.
Lin-Manuel Miranda is an American actor, rapper, composer, playwright and filmmaker. He is known for creating the Broadway musicals Hamilton (2015) and In the Heights (2005), and the soundtrack of Disney's Encanto (2021). His accolades include three Tony Awards, three Grammy Awards, two Laurence Olivier Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, an Annie Award, a MacArthur Fellowship Award, a Kennedy Center Honor, and a Pulitzer Prize.
American singer and songwriter Solange has released four studio albums: Solo Star in 2003, Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams in 2008, A Seat at the Table in 2016, which peaked at number one in the US Billboard 200 chart, and When I Get Home in 2019. Solange released a music video and single for "Losing You" on October 2, 2012. The single was released in promotion of her first EP, titled True, which Solange worked on with Dev Hynes and was released on November 27, 2012, by Terrible Records.
Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams is the second studio album by American R&B singer and songwriter Solange. It was released on August 26, 2008, by Geffen Records. Solange was heavily influenced by the "Motown Sound" of the 1960s and 1970s prior to the album's recording, prompting her to work with several like-minded producers and songwriters such as Jack Splash, CeeLo Green, Mark Ronson, and Lamont Dozier, formerly of Motown's Holland–Dozier–Holland. The production also incorporated elements of downbeat and electronic music that Solange had familiarized herself with on previous trips to Europe, while the songwriting explored themes of independence.
Blacc Hollywood is the fifth studio album by American rapper Wiz Khalifa. It was released in the UK on August 18, 2014 and in the US on August 19, by Rostrum Records and Atlantic Records. The album features guest appearances from Ty Dolla Sign, Juicy J, Project Pat, Currensy, Ghost Loft, Chevy Woods, and Nicki Minaj, among others. The album was supported by two official singles: "We Dem Boyz" and "You and Your Friends".
Mike & Keys are an American hip hop production and songwriting duo from Los Angeles, California that consists of Money Mike and J-Keys.
Saint Heron is a compilation album released by Solange Knowles' record label, Saint Records, on November 11, 2013. It features the original recordings of several contemporary R&B artists, including Knowles, Jhené Aiko, Cassie, BC Kingdom, Jade De LaFleur, Kelela, Kingdom, Petite Noir, Iman Omari, Sampha, India Shawn and Starchild. The intent of the album was to "feature, highlight and align a new movement of contemporary, genre-defying R&B visionaries" and to serve as a "segue into the diverse evolution of these independent artists as they share their voices and words as only they can – through pure, unadulterated music."
Jonathan Patrick Wimberly is an American record producer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer and mixing engineer best known as being one-half of the synth-pop duo Chairlift. The band parted ways in 2017 so Patrick and former bandmate Caroline Polachek could focus on their careers as producers/songwriters.
Hamilton is the cast album to the 2015 musical Hamilton. The musical is based on the 2004 biography of Alexander Hamilton written by Ron Chernow, with music, lyrics, and book by Lin-Manuel Miranda. The recording stars Lin-Manuel Miranda, Leslie Odom Jr., Phillipa Soo, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Christopher Jackson, Daveed Diggs, Anthony Ramos, Okieriete Onaodowan, Jasmine Cephas Jones, and Jonathan Groff. It also features Jon Rua, Thayne Jasperson, Sydney James Harcourt, Ephraim Sykes, Ariana DeBose, and Sasha Hutchings. The musicians on the album are Alex Lacamoire, Kurt Crowley, Andres Forero, Robin Macatangay, Richard Hammond, Benny Reiner, Jonathan Dinklage, Erin Benim Mayland, Anja Wood, Mario Gotoh, and Laura Sherman. It achieved the largest first week sales for a digital cast album and is the highest-charting cast album since 1963. It was the highest-selling Broadway cast album of 2015 and peaked at number one on the Rap Albums chart, the first cast album to ever do so. After being certified nine times platinum by the RIAA in 2021, Hamilton became the best-selling cast album of all time.
The Hamilton Mixtape is a 2016 mixtape album featuring assorted songs from the 2015 Broadway musical Hamilton performed by various artists, as well as some deleted songs from the musical. It was widely well-received by critics.
A Seat at the Table is the third studio album by American singer-songwriter Solange. It was released on September 30, 2016, by Saint Records and Columbia Records. While recording the album, Solange released an EP, titled True (2012) and launched her own record label named Saint Records. Writing for the album began as early as 2008, while the recording sessions took place from 2013 to June 2016. Solange enlisted a variety of collaborators including rappers Lil Wayne and Q-Tip; singer-songwriters The-Dream, BJ the Chicago Kid, Kelly Rowland and Tweet; and musicians Sampha, Kelela and David Longstreth.
"Cranes in the Sky" is a song by American singer and songwriter Solange. Released on October 5, 2016 by Saint Records and Columbia Records, it is the first single from Solange's third album, A Seat at the Table. The song was written by Solange, who co-produced it with Raphael Saadiq.
Moana: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the soundtrack to the 2016 Disney animated film Moana. The soundtrack was released by Walt Disney Records on November 19, 2016. It features songs written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Mark Mancina and Opetaia Foa'i, with lyrics in English, Samoan, Tokelauan and Tuvaluan. The two-disc deluxe edition includes the score, which was composed by Mancina, as well as demos, outtakes and instrumental karaoke tracks. The record also produced two singles.
"A Forgotten Spot (Olvidado)" is a song performed by American composer Lin-Manuel Miranda along with Puerto Rican singers Zion & Lennox, De La Ghetto, Ivy Queen, PJ Sin Suela and Lucecita Benítez. It was released on September 20, 2018 by Atlantic Records and Warner Music Group. The song was written by Miranda, along with the rest of the collaborators.
John Carroll Kirby is an American pianist, record producer and composer based in Los Angeles, California, United States. As a musician, Kirby has collaborated with artists including Solange, Frank Ocean, Miley Cyrus, Norah Jones, Bat for Lashes, Connan Mockasin, Sébastien Tellier, Harry Styles, and others.