Ye Ali

Producer Ye Ali was born in Hammond, Indiana in 1988 into a strict Muslim home. Rap music was frowned upon in his household, so Ali's first brushes with music were listening to his father's modern country music selections. As a teenager, his tastes ran more toward radio-friendly R&B, but he was moved and fascinated after discovering Lil Wayne's Tha Carter II. During college, Ali had a casual interest in music and was on the fast track to a career in sports marketing, but legal troubles and a brief imprisonment left that path in jeopardy and he decided to pursue music production full-force instead. Beginning around 2012, he started blending his deep love and knowledge of R&B with his rap fixation, developing a style that was equal parts trap beats and Jodeci-inspired R&B grooves. He worked on productions for artists such as Bizzy Crook and Jazz Cartier, and eventually broke out on his own with solo singles like "Yours" and "Ring 4x." Throughout 2015 and 2016, he kept releasing tracks that he eventually compiled into the Private Suite mixtape, and followed in 2017 with more singles, including the viral "Talk Less." - Fred Thomas