Mike Check$

o. He has gathered millions of views and streams on the songs he’s produced, in addition to 175,000 views on his YouTube beat channel. He specializes in drill, trap, Jersey club, pop, and R&B production. Born on the day after Christmas in 1996, Mike grew up in the NYC suburb of Wyckoff, New Jersey with his parents and younger brother Brendan. He graduated from Don Bosco Prep in 2015. Throughout his childhood, Mike's mother would play Bruce Springsteen's music around the house, but it wasn't until the fifth grade that he fell in love with hip-hop music. This love of hip-hop followed him through middle school and into high school, where his passion for the genre only grew over time. In high school, Mike went through a phase where he wanted to be a rapper, but that fantasy soon died when he realized that as a suburban white kid, he didn't know what to rap about. He decided that he would rather work behind the scenes, and as a junior in high school, he took up an interest in making beats when he first downloaded FL Studio on his laptop. In the years that followed, he started experimenting and learning how to make beats as a hobby. However, after graduating from high school, Mike had no idea what he wanted to do for a career and bounced around from college to college, trying to figure out what major he should pursue. In January of 2019, Mike took an aptitude test that pointed him towards pursuing his passion for music. This led him to enroll in SAE Institute New York, where he commuted into Manhattan four days a week for a year to learn how to be a recording engineer, in addition to establishing contacts in the pursuit of his producing career. Mike graduated from SAE Institute in April 2020 with an audio technology diploma, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was starting. During the summer of 2020, he interned at the Gray Note Studio in Hackensack, NJ, a position he landed through the career services department at SAE. It was at the Gray Note where he learned to network and developed connections with promoters, booking agents, A&R's, managers, and several well-known artists in the local New York/New Jersey rap scene. He was lucky enough to attend several live shows and meet many of the leading artists in hip-hop through the connections he was able to make during this time. While interning at the Gray Note, Mike started landing beat placements with several rappers, including names like Ron Suno, DThang Gz, Rocko Ballin, PNV Jay, BandmanRill, and Sha EK which motivated him to take his producing career more seriously. During his time as an intern, he also took up the role of amateur A&R for his studio's label imprint, Cloud Musix, where he would recruit artists to meet with his boss, entertainment attorney Navarro Gray, as well as work to secure placements with these artists for himself and his associated producers. That role also gave Mike experience tracking artists' growth on streaming platforms, YouTube, and social media. After several months of interning at the Gray Note, Mike began taking sessions as an engineer, which he still does to this day. During the summer of 2021, Mike stopped working as an intern and transitioned to working as a full-time engineer, which enabled him to more easily land placements for himself and work with artists more directly in the studio. He also decided to finish his bachelor's degree as a Music Industry major at nearby Ramapo College of New Jersey, where he is currently a junior and was recognized as a Dean's List student in the Fall of 2022.