Malay is the professional alter ego of prolific Grammy-winning producer, engineer, composer, and multi-instrumentalist James Ryan Ho. While best known for producing
Frank Ocean's
Channel Orange,
Malay was in the game long before then, and has a long and storied credit list. Though active on the independent club and studio scenes since 1998, his first major-label credit was for adding keyboards to the hip-hop track "I Don't Know Officer" by
50 Cent,
Lloyd Banks,
Prodigy, and others on the soundtrack to
Get Rich or Die Tryin' in 2005. The following year provided a true break, when he co-produced Hot Rod's "Be Easy" (feat.
Mary J. Blige) with
Jake One. In 2008, he began netting songwriting as well as production credits. He worked with
Donnie Klang,
Day 26,
Killer Mike, and most importantly,
John Legend on half of
Evolver. Singles and albums with
Big Boi,
Yelawolf,
Jamie Foxx, Fantasia, and Goapelle followed. The work with
Ocean was his true industry breakthrough, the record that put him in the pantheon. The pair had known one another for years when they decided to write and record together on what would become a modern soul classic. In interviews,
Malay claimed the sources of his own musical inspiration as
Pink Floyd,
Marvin Gaye, and others who had done conceptual recordings where small elements were important parts in telling a story. After that chart-topping breakthrough, which netted him a Grammy,
Malay had more work than he could handle but always seemed to welcome more. He chalked up credits on records as diverse as
Alicia Keys' "One Thing,"
Linus Young's
Category 5,
Rascal Flatts' "Wildfire" (as
James Ho), and
tUnE-yArDs'
Nikki Nack, to name a few. In 2015,
Malay was not only producer but executive producer (as well as songwriter, instrumentalist, and engineer) on
Stacy Barthe's debut full-length
BEcoming, and produced and co-wrote the singles "Wild Things" and "Stone" (ft.
Sebastian Kole) on
Alessia Cara's
Know-It-All. He also worked on half of
Yelawolf's
Love Story.
Malay's next massive success was in assisting former
One Direction member
Zayn Malik transform from boy band heartthrob to
ZAYN, smooth soul loverman-superstar, by co-writing and producing his debut, 2016's chart-topping (and digital sales-record breaking)
Mind of Mine. That same year,
Malay wrote
Corinne Bailey Rae's single "In the Dark," wrote and produced
6Lack's "Shaolin's Theme/ Pray" from the Netflix series The Get Down, and produced
Ocean's chart-topping follow-up album
Blond (cut at Britannia Row Recordings studio in the U.K., where
Pink Floyd worked on
Dark Side of the Moon). At the end of the year,
Malay announced that he and his manager, Randy Cohen were partnering with BMG to launch his own label imprint, which wasn't named at press time. ~ Thom Jurek