Sounwave

Mark Anthony Spears, known professionally as Sounwave, is an American hip-hop record producer and songwriter from Compton, California, and an original member of the Californian hip-hop label Top Dawg Entertainment. Sounwave has worked on every Kendrick Lamar studio album since Lamar's 2009 self-titled EP, including the Grammy Award-winning albums "Good Kid, M.A.A.D City", "To Pimp a Butterfly", and the multi-Grammy and Pulitzer Prize–winning album "Damn". He has received two Grammy Awards: Best Rap Song (2015) for "Alright", and Best Rap Album (2017) for "Damn".
Early life.
Hailing from Compton, Sounwave credits "Up Jumps da Boogie" by Timbaland as the first hip hop instrumental he ever listened to. From the age of ten, he started using a Korg drum machine to make simple drum beats. From there, he graduated to a 4-track machine and then to the MTV Music Generator for PlayStation. After using that for a while, he hooked up with rapper Bishop Lamont from Carson, California, and a song he produced for him with MTV Music Generator received local radio placement.
Musical career.
2005–2008.
In 2005, Sounwave was originally discovered by Top Dawg Entertainment co-founder Terrence "Punch" Henderson, who had him meet with TDE CEO Anthony "Top Dawg" Tiffith. Anthony "Top Dawg" Tiffith was originally unimpressed with Sounwave; however, Sounwave persisted and honed his craft, which ended up "blowing away" Tiffith. It was then he became a member of Digi+Phonics, an American hip hop production team, composed of fellow California-based record producers Tae Beast, Dave Free and Willie B. They served as the main in-house producers for Carson-based record label, Top Dawg Entertainment. Digi+Phonics worked significantly on projects from all the members of hip hop supergroup Black Hippy, who are also signed to Top Dawg and is composed of rappers Kendrick Lamar, Jay Rock, Schoolboy Q, and Ab-Soul.
2009–2016.
Sounwave's earliest work for Top Dawg Entertainment surfaced on the self-titled "Kendrick Lamar" and Jay Rock's compilation track "Fa Sho", in 2009 and 2010 respectively. In 2011, Sounwave produced the bulk of Lamar's mixtape/album "Section.80", which landed him on "Complex"s "15 New Producers to Watch" list. He also produced three songs on Lamar's critically acclaimed second album "Good Kid, M.A.A.D City" (2012). Sounwave is known for producing Kendrick Lamar's hit single "Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe", among other songs such as "M.A.A.D. City", "A.D.H.D" and Schoolboy Q's "There He Go". In 2014, he earned a placement on Top Dawg Entertainment artist Isaiah Rashad's "Cilvia Demo" and produced "Hoover Street" and "Prescription/Oxymoron" on Schoolboy Q's "Oxymoron". Outside of his work with artists in the Top Dawg Entertainment label, he worked with Flo Rida on the song "Finally Here" from the latter's second album "R.O.O.T.S." (2009). Sounwave is also credited with production on four tracks on Schoolboy Q's fourth studio album, "Blank Face LP".
2016–present.
In 2016, Sounwave worked alongside Lamar and Top Dawg Entertainment CEO Tiffith as co-writer, A&R, and producer of "Black Panther: The Album", the official soundtrack to the film "Black Panther". His work on the film's single "All the Stars" with Lamar and SZA earned nominations for Best Original Song for the Academy Awards, Golden Globe Awards, and Critics' Choice Movie Awards.
Outside of Top Dawg Entertainment, Sounwave has collaborated with Beyoncé, Mary J Blige, and many others. In 2019, Sounwave co-wrote and co-produced the song "London Boy" for Taylor Swift's seventh studio album "Lover" (2019).