To be a fly on music producer Miles Franklin’s wall is an envious position, and one I’ve been in for the past four years we’ve been together. Professionally known as Super Miles, these last few years have given me an extremely abnormal way of getting to know the proficient beatmaker. With an extensive discography of work that features the likes of Wale, Reese, Smoke Dza, and so many more industry heavyweights, I’ve witnessed the intimate relationship Miles has upheld with his collaborators in the studio, as well as his perseverance on this treacherous journey. I’ve felt the mood in the studio shift as soon as he connects his laptop and plays a couple of his beats. I’ve seen the thrill in the eyes of an artist after hearing a Super Miles production before they immediately kick everyone out of the room to begin recording. I’ve seen him go for weeks at a time making 15 beats every day just because that’s how energized he felt. Running off of pure willpower and self-discipline, Miles has been on this mission since high school. And he’s not letting up until it’s finished.

It all started on his computer in his childhood bedroom in Grand Prairie, Texas, and Miles has been making beats independently for ten years since. “I used to tell my mom I don’t know what it is that I’m going to do but I’m not wearing a uniform,” Miles told me. Having newfound freedom after high school, his discipline had to be sharp. While his friends went off to university, Miles logged into Twitter and entered “send beats” in the search bar to see which artists were within his reach. No matter what else he had to do on any given day, he also had to make beats. “You really got to learn yourself and what makes you tick and the things that make you go,” he said. And the music was always the answer that made the most sense to him.

After a close friend of his told Miles that he should consider taking the music route seriously, he did. Starting from number one, Miles began numbering his beats as he went, marking the start of his beat stamp “SM” followed by the corresponding number. As I’m writing this, the living room of our downtown LA apartment is warm and filled with sonic waves, while kicks and claps reverberate off every surface (and freak out our two cats). He’s working on SM4251.

Miles and I moved to LA from Dallas on July 31, 2018, which also happened to be my 21st birthday. We were living in one Airbnb rental after another and hadn’t even found an apartment yet before Miles was getting invited to attend TDE and Dreamville studio sessions. He attended every session he was invited to and on the days he didn’t have one scheduled, he made beats at home. Always, always making beats. Christmas, New Years, his birthday — all spent making beats. It was during those very holidays where I truly began to understand Miles’ determination. He couldn’t see the holidays as “holidays” anymore. They were ordinary days, and on an ordinary day, he made beats.

I remember being frustrated about not being able to celebrate the holidays the way I used to because he would be so focused on his music. Then, one day, he explained his reasoning to me. If there are 4,000 Super Miles beats, he described, the likelihood of getting one of the 4,000 placed is much higher, and the more beats that get placed, the bigger his web increases. “I’ve just been in [the industry] long enough to know that once I get one placement, it leads to another,” he said. It was a simple formula. I never gave him shit for working during the holidays (or any day, for that matter) ever again.

One Fall morning, the Los Angeles sunshine started finding its way through our bedroom windows, waking me up around 7 AM. As usual, Miles was already up. He was sitting up on his laptop reading through a quite lengthy document. I rubbed my eyes open and read the big, bold title “PULSE Music Exclusive Partnership Agreement.” The moment Miles spent the last decade working for had finally arrived. He has been offered about fifteen deals in the past, so him looking over a contract wasn’t shocking to either one of us. But this time was different. Miles wasn’t going to turn the deal down this time, he was getting ready to sign it. As excited as I was for him, his expressions and energy remained reserved. It was almost as if he was preparing for what was to come, his web had just increased in size and he had made his 4,000 beats (and counting).

Miles’ signing was a big deal, not only because it’s a benchmark in his career but because he let go of his independent status. The days where he could choose to walk away if he wanted were over. He’s always told me about the fucked up shit that the music industry is known for and how he plans on retiring from it sometime in the near future, but now he’s signing on the dotted line, which ties him a little closer to it. I knew none of his feelings had changed but I trusted that, in his mind, he had already developed the plan for the next couple of years. So, I asked him about it. All of it.

SANDY MOSQUEDA: You’ve been working solely as an independent music producer for the last ten years but today is different. It’s your first day as a signed producer. How do you feel?
SUPER MILES: It’s pretty much the same thing to me. I’m not going to change anything about what I do, it’s just more administration. I’ll just be looked at differently like I’m “on a different level” than what I was before. But I’m still going to do the same shit, I’m not going to change up my work habits or anything. It’s all the same.

But this isn’t the first time you’ve been signed right?
No, but the first time I was super young.

When was that?
That was 2011 or 2012.

How old were you?
19.

What made you sign then?
For one, I wanted to do something to show my parents how serious I was taking it, and me just saying the shit didn’t click. I mean, when your kid tells you something, it’ll register but it doesn’t register for real until somebody else is like, “Yo I think your kid is really dope.” They just think I’m talking shit or avoiding going to school but I was taking it seriously. What’s dumb is I didn’t care what was in the contract. I was going to sign it anyway to be like, “yo, these people are showing interest in me.”

Was that the first deal that was presented?
Yeah, the very first one. I didn’t even know those people. I was just like this is an opportunity, I’m about to just do it and figure it out…not that I’m giving that advice to anyone. [Laughs] I don’t want anyone signing anything that they don’t know what they’re signing. I will never advise that.

So many people get stuck in bad deals, though. How did you make it out?
It kind of timed out. The people I was signed to, ended up getting a big star, K CAMP. K CAMP blowing up basically made them not give a fuck about me. The contract just dissolved through time. K Camp was the main artist they wanted to work on. Him going crazy kinda just dissolved the shit honestly. We just stopped communicating. Every now and then I still talk to the dude who signed me. The deal might have been bad but I didn’t really make crazy bread with them like that–well maybe I was, I just didn’t know it. [Laughs] Maybe I just wasn’t seeing any of it. It was just my first deal and it’s also different for artists and producers. Producer contracts are way better. There’s still a bunch of bad ones but you can make it. Most of the horror stories come from artist contracts.

You always see cases of producers signing under big producers and being taken advantage of, or the bigger producer takes all the credit. Would you still consider that a bad deal if you’re still getting the mentorship from a big producer?
Me personally, I would never do it. I just know too much. Had I been young, first starting out, of course, I would be like, “Oh shit I’m going to sign under DJ Mustard.” But now that I know what I know, I wouldn’t sign to no producer because if you have something and it ends up making its way to a certain level of artist, the producers are going to do what they do anyway. Being signed to another producer is kind of understandable for bigger opportunities but at the same time, it might not be as good as you thought because of what happens. You can have a big ass song and if you’re signed to Mustard, then everyone is just going to be like, “Yo Mustard has a crazy joint.” He didn’t make the beat but, you’re signed to Mustard so he technically made the beat. It just depends on how you view your career and what you want for yourself.

How many more deals have you been offered?
Probably like fifteen. It’s been a bunch. Even with deals, people do their due diligence. People don’t like to put things on paper until they know how committed you really are and if it’s a conversation you really want to have for real. They rarely put things on paper. As far as things that I’ve been offered, I’ve had at least 20 conversations where someone was interested but it just never really left off the ground. It seems like a lot but sometimes it’s just people checking the temperature or sometimes it just be people who want to be nosy and see who you’re dealing with or talking to.

What are your thoughts on the current takes within the music industry?
There are so many people who get their hands in the pie who have absolutely nothing to do with anything. I feel like it’s such a wild wild west because it’s so easy to be an artist now that you have all these people trying to do 60 million things. Getting a song done, you might be talking to somebody’s stylist and then you’ll meet them and they’re like, “yeah, I sing on the side a little bit, I’m a songwriter.” Like, you just told me this person is a stylist, and then if y’all end up making something happen, I got to break them off. I’ve always been the person to be like if someone brings me play, you always break them off. That’s just me personally but you meet so many people and they’re doing so many things. Like this person is literally somebody’s weed carrier but he gave me the plug so now he’s a songwriter too. It’s not a big deal to me but it seems like that’s what everybody is like. It’s hard getting into a room and not having to break down with somebody. Somebody random is going to end up in the conversation. It’s just like that.

There’s a lot of talk around that. I feel like the bigger that you get, the more you lose sight of all the people in the room with you expecting to get a slice of the pie.
Back to what you were saying, that’s why people sign to producers because you get to a certain level and people are so closed off. They had to go through the wringer for an Ariana Grande song. They had to do so much shit just to even get the opportunity. It’s like “Yo I really want to get this song, who does she work with?” and you see all these people like “damn this person has ten producers under him.” [Laughs] You would have to do so much work to get to that place that it wouldn’t make sense for me not to be like, “if this is really what you want, this is what it’s going to be.” It’s not always going to be like that but for the majority of it, it kinda has to be like that because those top artists are so closed off. They just had to do too much to even get to the point where they felt like they were making enough money and accomplishing everything they wanted to do. The only way those people would let you play on their level is if you’re on paperwork, the whole music game is like that.

No handouts?
Yeah because you can put a song out on SoundCloud and it can be a hit. Because of that, people have to make sure everything they do is accounted for. Like, “Yo I was a part of this song, it just went #1, I need to know right now all the things I’m getting. The internet has made it to where you can do one thing and now you’re a megastar.

Speaking of the industry, one of the moments where I’ve witnessed the most resilience from you was the time we were listening to Cardi B’s Invasion of Privacy for the first time and you noticed that one of the beats sounded a little bit too familiar. It was a beat that you made but got stolen. What did that feel like and what was your thought process when that happened?
I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news but shit happens. [Laughs] Cardi B is a huge artist, a Cardi B record could make you a millionaire, but money is not the biggest motivator for me. That let me know that I was doing the right thing. Ultimately, my goal is to think of something and see if I had the right idea. That beat being remade let me know I did have the right idea. Dealing with that company she’s signed to, that shit happens all the fucking time. And it’s not like it’s just me, all of those beats on that album could have been remade. It’s not just me, I’m just a casualty of war. It is what it is. That’s my advice with anyone that had to go through that, it kind of is what it is.

You said the money wasn’t one of your main motives for being a producer. What is?
Most of the things I’m interested in are tasteful things, so I notice in music if you’re somebody that has a great appreciation for how things are done. People will look at you in a certain light. Most of the people that are my favorites, other people look at them like, “Yo I love his style, I love how they do things.” It’s not necessarily about what they’re doing. Most of the time, it’s always about how someone does something.

Who is the prime example of that?
Kanye, my favorite artist. Look at Kanye’s discography. What people would say about Kanye is he’s doing all this shit, why does it seem like it’s on such a high level? Of course, it’s a high level but I just feel like he has good taste and he picks good things and sounds. His palette means something to him so I always want to do the same. Most of the things I like in life, in general, are done a certain way. Most of my favorite movies are of a certain type. Most of the clothes I like are a certain type of clothes. Making beats, I feel like you can do that. You can do it with rap but one of the things that helped Kanye stand out was how good a producer he is and how he did his shit. My number one goal is making shit I think is tight and making sure it’s done in a tasteful manner.

You told me once that making beats is very much like a mathematical formula. How did you create your own formula and how do you determine which formula to use?
Me liking Kanye West led me to start looking up producers. My biggest musical influence is probably Surf Club, there’s no one who has impacted me more than the Surf Club. For people who don’t know what that is, Surf Club consisted of, and I might be leaving out members, but Hit-Boy, Chase N Cashe, Stacy Barthe, Chili Chil, Kent M$NEY, G.Ry, and B. Carr. Coming up studying them, they did everything. They did hard shit, they did left-field shit, they did everything. Specifically Hit-Boy, that’s my favorite producer of all time. Since I like tasteful things, I always thought Hit-Boy was so unique but he was still doing everything. He just had a certain way of doing everything.

He had taste.
He had taste! I’ve been following him and people would always say Hit-Boy has so many beats. He will never run out. So me, I took that as I should model my shit to be a little like that. If Hit-Boy is versatile and he’s my biggest influence, I have to be as versatile as him. That’s my number one thing. Had I studied somebody else to the extent that I studied Hit-Boy, I probably wouldn’t have found the formula. But since it was Hit-Boy and he did everything, I do everything, too.

There’s a video of one of the Surf Club sessions that you’ve watched so many times. You later recognized that there are some people in that same video that you work very closely with today.
Yeah, that’s what’s kind of crazy about life. In this video that I used to watch about Hit-Boy and Chase N. Cashe, they’re making a beat and my homie Matt, who is now my manager, is in the video. One of the things that Matt told me when I first started communicating with him is, “Yo, you know you kind of remind me of Hit-Boy.” I was like, “It’s crazy you say that because that’s literally who I’ve studied.”

Did you recognize Matt from that video when you first met him?
I looked at it again later but I knew who he was just off the strength of who he was working with. Since he was around the circle, I knew everyone who was around him. That’s all I was looking at.

How did you end up linking with Chase N. Cashe?
Matt is still cool with them. I don’t remember how but I guess he would just play my beats whenever he was with him and Matt would always tell me like, “Chase is such a fan of you bro.” I was like, “damn for real?” Matt’s like, “Yeah he loves your shit.” So I would just keep that in my mind. I knew a bunch of people that would be with Chase but I never wanted to be like, “Link me, I’m trying to pull up.” I never really been that aggressive about it. One day, I just popped up on Chase’s IG Live and he’s like, “bro I’m fucking with your shit bro. I love your sound, I love everything about what you’re doing.” I said, “Yo let’s link!” The first time, he didn’t really respond.

When was this?
This was six months ago.

Oh, this was recent.
Yeah, this was like maybe six months ago. I hit him, he didn’t respond. So then I popped up in another IG Live and he said the same thing to me. [Laughs] I was like,”Bro I’ll send you beats right now” and he hit me back and I sent him beats. We’ve been working ever since.

One of the funniest things was after you sent him a pack, Chase ran to Twitter and started tweeting about you.
What’s even funnier than that is the reason why I feel like he likes it is because it’s him!

[Laughs] Do you think he knows that?
I told him! He was like, “Yo these hits are so crazy.” I told him, “You and Hit was all I studied, so what you’re hearing is from y’all. Y’all gave me the game.” I’m glad that he fucks with it because that means everything I took from them, I’m doing right by it.

It’s like the Cardi B thing.
Yup, it’s all reassurance.

I’ve always found it super interesting how you’ve connected your professionalism and spirituality. Would you consider that Surf Club video that you watched over and over as part of the manifestation that led to the people you’re in touch with today?
In my world, I’m the extreme dictator.

As someone that lives with you, I know. [Laughs]
I am Kim Jong in my world. Whatever I say has to go. Especially if it’s something that I’m trying to do. I’ll never come off of that. Me doing all the things that I do and all the things that I say, it’s manifestation. But at the same time, the only reason why I’m saying these things and writing these things down is to hold myself accountable. I don’t want to say some shit out loud and then have someone check me like, “I thought you said–” and then they see me not actively working on it. I feel like that’s really what manifestation is, holding yourself accountable for the things you said you were going to do. I don’t take any excuses for the things that I want because if I truly want them, I have to have them. Yes, spirituality is a part of it, I know there are greater powers that have helped me along the way but I feel like a lot of it is me knowing how most things work. You kind of just have to keep saying shit and always keep saying the same things over and over and over. I’ll tweet them or write it down or tell somebody but I’m repeating the same things over and over until I find something that makes sense. There have been times where I’ve said, “Yo I want to work with this person,” and I didn’t know that it was going to lead me to something else that would eventually lead me to that person.

How do you feel about the timing of becoming a producer at the peak of the blog era?
I feel like anyone who is getting into it now, missed it. Yeah, there’s a bunch of cool podcasts now but that time was when it was so fresh. Everybody had their own way of doing things. A blog from Chicago only had Chicago shit. Yeah, they posted other shit but rarely. If you went to FakeShoreDrive.com, you were only seeing fly Chicago shit. You weren’t seeing all the other things. Blogs now are so commercial. That’s all it is now, everything is just bought now. Back then, it was pure. There’s this person that’s dope and he has a following, let’s put him on a blog. It was hella regional. Now, this blog needs ad money so they have to post this. You would just get on these blogs and find out about hella shit and it wasn’t paid for. That helped me a bunch because everybody that was on these blogs ended up turning out dope. Getting to see it from the beginning and see the roots of something and see why certain people move this way, but now everybody looks the same, everyone is popping off Instagram and everybody has tight vlogs. They don’t even know that Wiz made the vlogs fire. The only reason why people were making vlogs was because Wiz had the best ones. The DayToday’s started this whole vlog shit but now everybody has a vlog. You don’t even know where shit really comes from but luckily I got to see where most of the things that people think are tight, I got to see where it came from. 

You’ve always told me that once you’ve done what you want to accomplish in the industry, you’re retiring. Has that changed at all now that you’re signed and what does that look like in the future?
Yeah, I feel it more so now that I signed! (laughed) If I was able to do what I want and how I wanted it and was still able to get into a situation that works for me, absolutely because that means everything that people have told me up to this point was basically bullshit.

Like what?
Like all the things I wanted to do, all the songs I wanted to make, and all the artists that I want to get to eventually I got to everybody, and there are still a couple of people I want to get to. Most of the songs I got made were me knowing that it was going to work just because of how I listen to music. All the people who told me, “no, I think it should be like this,” all of them, are basically liars. I don’t want to use the word liars because at the end of the day they’re my goals but I feel like I want to retire sooner than what I said I would in the past because you mean to tell me I was able to do all these things when people told me no? Why would I ever want to be a part of that? Why would I want to participate with y’all if y’all was telling me no the entire time but I ended up being right? Me signing just means I was more right. I should triple down on what I was saying. That’s all that my signing is. My battle with the industry is I’m always going to think creatively and these people want you to think all of these decisions like, “Yo you need to be a smart businessman” XYZ. The music industry has been here for so long so my attitude is you might as well do what you think is tight and just take a million no’s until you figure out what a yes means for you. I figured out what a yes means for me. Me getting a deal means I don’t really have to listen to anybody. If they gave me a deal off doing this, now I got to do even harder for the shit that I think is tight.

Which artists do you absolutely need to get in with before you retire?
Kanye West of course. Drake, Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, The Weeknd, FKA Twigs, Skepta, Bryson Tiller, Common, Pusha T. If I got Kanye and Pusha T, I probably wouldn’t care if I got another placement ever. Them two would be fire.

What do you hope to accomplish between these next few years now being signed?
I feel like it’ll just be easier to do. Just working with more artists, making better songs, being connected with better songwriters and talented producers. It might introduce me to more things that I don’t even know about that might change my perspective on beat making. I’m not looking at my being signed as an opportunity that’ll change my life. I feel like my life has already been changed anyway. To me, this is like going to college. This might be where I meet something that changes my whole perspective on everything. I’m not scared of ideals anyway. I’m excited but it’s not going to be all that different. It’ll just be a different learning experience because I’m at a different level music-wise with the things I’m able to do now that I have a bigger web of people to talk to. I think it would make things easy.

What’s next after you retire? Will you continue to make music or is it completely cut off?
Me retiring means I’m only doing passion projects and things that make me tick. A lot of the time, making beats doesn’t make me tick sometimes. I do like hearing beats, I tell people to send me beats all the time. Ultimately, I just want to make tight songs so it doesn’t matter if I really make the beat or not. If I know another producer that I know would work well with this other person, I want them to do it. It might be my job to make those things happen. Me retiring, I’m only working on shit that I think is worth it. I shouldn’t have to work with somebody because of a check or because it’s my obligation. I only want to do things that are going to bring the best out of me and everyone involved. If it’s not going to be a project like that then I just won’t do it. 

As someone who navigated independently for so long, what advice would you give young independent producers?
Honestly, the thing that helped me out was that I always knew that if I was able to get a direct connection to somebody, I knew that my beats are tight. That’s one thing I do know. If you put me in the room with somebody, I know for a fact that someone is going to be like this is crazy. I can invoke that emotion out of an artist but since I knew that all I needed to do is get the connection. My advice is always if you’re making fire, you kind of just need to figure it out but it better be some fire. Nobody can ever say that they were in the studio with me and it wasn’t fire. First and foremost, it always had to be that I had fire with me. All the other stuff kind of comes second. If I’m fortunate enough to get this opportunity then I’m not letting this person down. I know opportunities don’t really come around like that. If someone gives me that opportunity, I’m for sure sending fire. It’s not tailored to anybody. Any beat that I’m sending to this person, I feel like they can do and are tight. That’s the #1 piece of advice I’ll give somebody, it better be some heat because if you’re not giving heat, you are not only wasting their time but you’re wasting your time.