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 the 2009 Lamar's 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.

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.

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, he 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 best 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's CEO Anthony "Top Dawg" 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).

In 2019, Sounwave collaborated with Jack Antonoff and Sam Dew to produce the self-titled album "Red Hearse".

Songs

2011

• "A.D.H.D" – Kendrick Lamar
• "Hol' Up" – Kendrick Lamar
• "No Make-Up (Her Vice)" – Kendrick Lamar
• "The Spiteful Chant" - Kendrick Lamar, Schoolboy Q

2012

• "m.A.A.d city" - Kendrick Lamar

2013

• "Bitch, Don't Kill My Vibe" - Kendrick Lamar

2014

• "Break the Bank" – Schoolboy Q

2015

• "Alright" - Kendrick Lamar

2016

• "That Part" – Schoolboy Q, Kanye West

2017

• "Element" - Kendrick Lamar
• "Feel" - Kendrick Lamar
• "God" - Kendrick Lamar
• "Love" - Kendrick Lamar, Zacari
• "Loyalty" - Kendrick Lamar, Rihanna
• "Lust" - Kendrick Lamar
• "XXX" - Kendrick Lamar
• "Yah" - Kendrick Lamar

2018

• "All the Stars" - Kendrick Lamar, SZA
• "Big Shot" - Kendrick Lamar, Travis Scott
• "Black Panther" - Kendrick Lamar
• "Bloody Waters" – Ab-Soul, Anderson .Paak, James Blake
• "I Am" – Jorja Smith, Kendrick Lamar
• "King's Dead" – Jay Rock, Kendrick Lamar, Future, James Blake
• "Opps" – Kendrick Lamar, Vince Staples, Yugen Blakrok
• "Paramedic!" – Kendrick Lamar, SOB x RBE, Zacari
• "Seasons" – Mozzy, Sjava, Reason
• "The Ways" – Kendrick Lamar, Khalid, Swae Lee
• "X" - Kendrick Lamar, Schoolboy Q, 2 Chainz, Saudi

2019

• "Nile" - Kendrick Lamar, Beyoncé
• "London Boy" – Taylor Swift

Albums

• Section.80 – Kendrick Lamar (2011)
• Black Panther – Kendrick Lamar (2018)
• Lover – Taylor Swift (2019)
• The Lion King: The Gift - Beyoncé (2019)

Academy Awards

• Nomination: Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song) – "All the Stars" (2018)

Golden Globe Awards

• Nomination: Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song) – "All the Stars" (2018)

Grammy Awards

• Won: Best Rap Song – "Alright" (2015)
• Nomination: Album of the Year – Good Kid, M.A.A.D City (2013)
• Nomination: Album of the Year – To Pimp a Butterfly (2015)
• Nomination: Song of the Year – "Alright" (2015)
• Nomination: Album of the Year – Damn (2017)
• Nomination: Record of the Year – "All the Stars" (2018)
• Nomination: Album of the Year – Black Panther (2018)
• Nomination: Song of the Year – "All the Stars" (2018)
• Nomination: Best Rap Song – "King's Dead" (2018)
• Nomination: Best Song Written for Visual Media – "All the Stars" (2018)

Guild of Music Supervisors Awards

• Nomination: Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song) – "All the Stars" (2018)