A Maejor Star is Born

For LSA freshman Brandon Green, college weekends haven’t been the series of gin-soaked parties or coffee-house pontifications of some of his peers.“I don’t have class on Friday, so I’m gone, doing shows, working the scene, from all day Friday, first thing, to Sunday evening,” he said.He’s not talking about waiting tables.Signed to Songbook, an imprint of label giant Atlantic Records, Southfield-native Brandon Green produces hip-hop, rap and R&B tracks under the alias Bei Maejor. He’s got a future most kids would die for, songs in the works with Twista, Jim Jones and T.I. and is easily one of the hottest producers under 25. Starting to work at an age when most are frittering away their high school days, Bei Maejor took to arranging music like a natural. “Around ninth grade I started messing around on my computer, imitating what I heard on the radio. My grandfather was a concert pianist, but no one else in my family played anything.”Thanks to the easy access and broad reach of the Internet, Bei Maejor’s career gained speed.“I had a website, I just started on computers, I’d sell a track, make $50, $100, and I started to buy equipment. I ended up on a DJ Big Mike mix tape, eventually Troy Taylor got a hold of it, found me and signed me.”And even with a saturated production scene, Maejor has considerable power and skill in his corner. Troy Taylor, the man who signed Maejor to Songbook, has produced some of the biggest R&B hits of the past 15 years. Taylor’s name may not be as familiar to general fans as Dr. Dre or Timbaland, but he’s worked with top-shelf acts such as Boyz II Men and Tyrese. Maejor said he’s benefiting from the exposure to different types of work and cites the range of experience he’s gaining from Taylor as one of his strongest points as a young artist. “I’m working with so many different people and so many different styles. I can work with anyone, I’m very diverse. I can do club records, I can do soul, I can do Doo-Wop,” he said.As far as family life and school work goes, Maejor seems to be savoring his low-profile. He said that neither his teachers nor his classmates know about his work, and that while his mother and father both insisted on his choice to attend college, they’ve started to come around to what his father once saw as “just messing around.” One member of his family is particularly excited about his success; “My little sister is playing guitar, and once she gets good, I’m going to do a song with her,” Maejor said, smiling.Right now Maejor’s mix-tape work is available through www.mixtapemurder.com, though, with the way things have panned out so far, it won’t be long until Maejor’s work is flooding the airwaves. As most students deal with end-of-term madness and scramble for summer jobs, Maejor’s life has a bit different style of excitement.“One day my manager called me and told me to send him a track, and I thought ‘What’s this all about?’ and my manager sort of said ‘Yeah, Twista wants to use the track’ and I was thinking ‘Wow, that’s crazy.’ ”