“It helps when you have a Platinum single and a video with over 300 million views.” Mike Will is talking about his relationship with Interscope Records, explaining why they’re not hassling him about the release date of his forthcoming ‘Est. in 1989 Pt. 3’ album. And he’s not overstating his industry clout. At the time of writing, he has produced 27 singles – 20 of which have cracked the Billboard Hot 100, and all but two have bothered the US Rap and R&B radio charts. As you read this, there are countless stray radio waves dissipating into space, some light-years from Earth now, that bear his audio tag: a woman’s voice saying “Mike Will Made It” in four evenly stressed syllables.

What kind of opportunities does making your own album afford you that doing one-off singles doesn’t?

It’s like you’re cooking a full pizza instead of a slice of pizza. I have creative control of my album, and its not really too much different. I don’t really have anyone standing over my shoulder in any situation.

Are you keen to take the opportunity to explore songs that aren’t as focussed on the clubs?

Yeah, definitely. I always just try and make sure that, when it comes to whatever song I’m putting out there – I’m from Atlanta. On any day of the week there’s at least eight clubs open, and that’s just what we know as far as the music is around here.

But when I invite someone over to my place I would listen to all types of music: Queen, Earth, Wind & Fire, James Blake, Kanye, Rihanna, Cash Money, Gucci Mane, Young Jeezy, The Police, No Doubt. You name it.

I’m just always exploring different music, so I knew at some point people will respect my creativity and and be curious about what different sound I will put out. I feel like we’ve finally made it to that stage.

Is there a particular story that you want to tell over the course of an album?

You could take that approach. But someone like me, well, I’m not doing anything really lyrical – I’m not really rapping on the album. I just try and take the best kind of feel.

You’ve worked with someone like Gucci Mane, who has had a famously rapid output of music. But it sounds like you tend to work more like a perfectionist, spending six months on one track, like ‘Buy The World’ with Future, Lil Wayne and Kendrick.

It’s all about sound. When you’re trying to come up with this masterpiece, it takes some time to get that sound that you’re going for.

Have you locked in any more features for the album?

I’m working on this project right now. I got pretty much everybody on there. It’s got new artists on there and it’s got some established artists that I’ve been working with. It’s a real solid project. I originally starting looking at a mixtape, but there’s such a demand for it that I was like ‘Man, people are ready for me to put out a full project.’

I got a lot of different features. I’ve been working on like three albums on my laptop.

How’s Ear Drummer Records going?

Everyone’s looking at Rae Sremmurd like a breath of fresh air. Everyone’s reaching out to work with them, whether it’s hip-hop or not. They’re like walking jukeboxes.

Two-9, they’re killing it – they’ve got [elements from] West Coast hip-hop, backpack rap. They’re like super cool like a collective, like the Wu-Tang Clan. They have a lot of energy on stage, and they’ve got a lot of different flows. Real lyrical content, and real creative when it comes to music, videos and anything

Rae Sremmurd were homeless for some time before you guys started working together, right? Do you feel like a mentor for acts on the label, in life as well as music?

Definitely man. We all stick together. We all try to keep each other on point. We all try and bring each other up. We’re like brothers.

Do you have any plans for who’s next after Rae Sremmurd?

I have a artist named Lex. She’s young, but her voice is very, very strong. I don’t want her to have to fill anyone else’s shoes but a lot of people want to hear her music and they make a very quick comparison to Adele, or Amy Winehouse, or India Arie. Like a female James Blake.

A lot of people make those comparisons when they hear her voice, and it’s just dope to hear people put her on that level. She’s amazing. She’s definitely going to be a world-wide superstar. She’s really like a artist that I feel like nobody’s expecting to come from Ear Drummer Records – just because of the way that we came out, and the way people were introduced to us.

It seems like you’re producing for more and more singers these days. Do you enjoy the new set of challenges that come with the territory, that are different to producing instrumentals for rap verses?

At the end of the day, I just like just new challenges. When I was new in the game, the new challenge was to work with the hottest rapper around. That was all I really knew. That was all people had to work with.

Then you’re transcending and doing things that have never been done. When you hear [Future’s] ‘Turn On the Lights’, it’s never been done. At the same time, Future was doing his thing, instead of doing a super-R&B thing. I feel like male R&B kinda got watered down. It’s like rappers are doing it better than the R&B artists out there.

I feel we’ve got more people reaching out and I get access to more different kinds of artists nowadays. It’s definitely dope working with Miley Cyrus, and an amazing voice like Lex.

It’s super-dope working with Rae Sremmurd and Future – those people in hip-hop who are going to continue to push things forward. That’s dope to me too. A group like Two-9. They’re going to go extra lyrical on a track, so I like working with them because they’re going to come up with all different kind of flows. So I can’t really say I like working with some rather than others.

Speaking of mixing things up, I understand you’re working on the [rapper-free] #FuckVerses EP.

I’m working on that. And right after Ransom that’s going to be the next project that I release. It’s already done.

Does it have a release date?

No. I’m actually trying to work out the time I’m going to release everything now.  These projects are all done through Ear Drummer Records. #FuckVerses is one of them, [Mike Will mixtape] Ransom is another, [Rae Sremmurd’s] SremmLife is another one. My own project – that’s another one.

There’s a lot of stuff that we want to put out on my label, but we’re just trying to line everything up and make sure that everything’s tight.

You were the executive producer on Miley’s Bangerz album, right? When you’re in that executive producer’s seat, is it hard to take your hands off all the details?

Definitely on Miley’s album. She had some dope producers, like Pharrell and Dr. Luke, so they pretty much had the songs sounding up because they’re geniuses in their own way.

When you are producing for other projects, it can be hard because you might hear it one way, and the artist may hear it another way, and you don’t seem to agree. But you’ve gotta respect that it’s the artist’s project and you’ve gotta respect what the artist is saying to a certain extent. So sometimes you’ve gotta find the middle ground.

Is executive producer a role that you’d like to do more of in the future?

Yeah, definitely man. Not only do I like doing my own projects, like I was saying before, I like doing pretty much everything. I’m really passionate about whatever I’m working on. It’s all about growth. I like going from producing records to being able to produce projects. I want to continue to do that.

I want to score my own movies. Earlier I did the production for a Nike commercial with LeBron, with John Legend in it, called Training Day. I don’t want to put myself in a box, and only say I’m producing a project for me or for an artist. I really like to keep an open slate and pretty much do anything, and see things through. I just want to keep doing innovative shit.