Engineers are the unsung heroes of the music industry, and while seldom recognizable or well-known as producers, their importance behind the board deserves the utmost appreciation. In the case of MixedByAli, who has long held it down for the TDE camp and beyond, his discography speaks for itself with projects like Kendrick Lamar's Section 80 & To Pimp A Butterfly, YG's My Krazy Life, Danny Brown's Atrocity Exhibition, Boogie's Everything's For Sale, and many more.
Today, MixedByAli took to Instagram to open up about his latest endeavor, a company he started called EngineEars. "For over two years I’ve been taking my time really understanding the real problems in my industry," he writes. "From all of this research, what I've realized is that the problem is there are minimal tools provided to audio engineers to set us up for success, and very little access for artists and labels to search and instantly book talented engineers for their projects."
Roddy Ricch & More Invest In MixedByAli's "EngineEars" Company">Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images
"This is why we created the solution; @engineears," he continues. "From acquiring clients and scheduling new projects, managing file storage and project archiving, to tracking payments, EngineEars provides audio engineers with the tools to operate their business whilst democratizing access to high-quality engineering for artists globally."
In addition to sharing the mission statement, Ali also revealed an extensive list of pre-seed investors, many of whom boast at least one piece of music mixed by his hand. The list includes Kendrick Lamar, Roddy Ricch, Mustard, DJ Khaled, Ella Mai, Russ, YG, Bas, Smino, Kenny Beats, Ibrahim Hamad, and many more. So many backers, in fact, that EngineEars has already reached a pre-seed investment goal of one million dollars. In addition to Ali's hip-hop investors, the project also saw heavy funding from the Slauson & CO investment company, as well as The Community Fund and EQT.
Check out Ali's EngineEars announcement post below, and show some love to one of the game's MVPs in the comments below. We look forward to seeing what Ali continues to bring to the table -- and that includes his involvement of whatever TDE albums have been lining the 2021 release calendar.