In this interview on the Draymond Green Show, NBA player‑producer Javale McGee recounts his journey from a tech‑savvy college student making beats on a $600 laptop with FL Studio to a professional producer working in Oakland and Los Angeles studios. He describes how, after buying an iMac and switching to Logic Pro, he built connections with local producers and eventually met Pooh Bear, Justin Bieber’s primary songwriter. Together they crafted a melody that became a track on Bieber’s 2020 ‘Changes’ album; because the album was Grammy‑nominated, McGee earned a Grammy nomination as a producer. McGee explains the gritty reality of production work—providing multiple beats, collaborating in real‑time, and navigating legal issues that can stall releases. He shares that he currently has about 20 finished songs, including five with major artists, and maintains a portable home studio wherever he travels. The conversation ends with a call‑to‑action to subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel.
Chapters
— you go to LA, you win a Grammy.
I'm Grammy nominated.
Okay, you get nominated for a Grammy.
Yeah.
Like talk about that, active basketball player. And I say active, active in the highest way, like winning championships and yet being nominated for Grammys. Like talk about that experience. Tell us the song, like how it came about. Like, and also, and then how you originally got into making beats and doing different things with the music.
Yeah, so originally I got into music, like Draymond said, I'm a tech guy. Like you said, I'm a big tech guy. So once I figured out, I seen online or something that you can make music through your computer, I was like, wait, wait, you don't need a whole mix board and all this crazy machine that you see, you know, them old videos on YouTube of Kanye making beats and he go runs over here and makes another beat. I'm just like, I can't afford to get all that stuff. Like, I don't know. But as soon as I found out, I think it was college actually. I bought maybe a $600 laptop. I downloaded FL Studio and I made some beats. And then me and my roommate, we made like an album. I hope that never comes out. I hope that no one ever finds that. We had a MySpace with our album cover on it and 6 songs on it. It was crazy. But I was just making beats and it was just something I was interested in. It was just another passion of mine. So then when I got to the NBA, I had a little bread on me. I went and got me an iMac. First thing I downloaded on the iMac is Logic Pro, which is a beat-making program. So I download that. So I'm working on that. I had been working on it for at least 10 years making beats, but nothing crazy. I just, I didn't have a feel for it yet, just because I didn't really know the ins and outs of how it really works. I used to think you just use the stock beats. I didn't realize you have to meet other producers and other producers that give you drums and different sounds to really enhance your producing. Once I got to Golden State, actually, I was— I believe I was playing 8 minutes a game. So I had a little bit more time than guys like you who were playing 25, 30 minutes a game and like that. So I was like, OK, I'mma get this basketball done, but I got a lot of free time. Let me think of different aspects of how I can generate my passion and what I'm really into. So then I started working with guys around the Oakland area. Mm-hmm. Just making music. I'm in the studio with I Am Sue. I met Marky Basie, a lot of, a lot of people in the Bay that I'm locked in with. And, and the energy, it was just amazing. I'm making songs, I'm producing songs, and it was just that vibe. I carried that over, that same energy over into LA. So when I got to LA, I was in studios, I was meeting ARs, I was meeting everybody, trying to meet as many people as possible while I was in LA to take advantage of that aspect of playing for the Los Angeles Lakers. And in the process, I met this amazing songwriter named Pooh Bear. And he's Justin Bieber's main songwriter. I met— I had met Pooh Bear probably 4 summers before. And I had met him in the summer because I would stay in LA in the summer. And I paid him $13,000 to write 2 songs for me. Never used neither one of those songs. Never used neither one of them. But I kept the relationship. And we were still cool, blah, blah, blah. So when I got to LA, he's like, pull up to the studio. Like, all right, here I come. I come to the studio. We get in the studio. I'm playing him some samples, playing him some of my beats. He hears one of my beats and he tells me, take the drums off. Let me just hear that melody. Mm-hmm. And I'm playing that melody and he's like, "All right, load this up." So we load it into Pro Tools and he just starts writing the song. Like, we collab. He like, "Should I say this? Should I say that?" I'm like, "Yeah, say that, say that." And we damn near write, we write the verse, the chorus, and the second verse. And that's it. That's all I heard of it. Wasn't no drums on it, wasn't anything on it. And at the time it wasn't like, "Hey, come to the studio so you can make a song for Justin Bieber." Nah, it was just come to the studio. So we came to the studio. So I came and I did that. We made that. We made one song. It's the only song we made. Then it was over. It was like, "All right, cool. Appreciate it, bro. Cool vibe, cool session." And that's usually how producing works. People don't understand. People think producing is just, "Hey, give a beat to an artist, he uses it, and now you're platinum." Nah. Being a producer is hard work. You have to be in the studio when these artists want to be in the studio.
Yeah.
And you have to have the type of beats that that artist wants to listen or rap or sing to. When they feel like it. So it's 3 in the morning, like, "All right, I don't feel like doing trap anymore. I want to do an R&B record. Got any?" "Ah, let me pull up this laptop. All right, here go some beats." And it's not, "Oh, I got one beat. Here you go." It's, "You got 20 of them I can listen to? Like, you want me to give you 20 so you can pick one?" Like, it's hard work. It is not easy. People think it's just, "Oh, you a star or whatever. They just let you—" Nah, it's not like that. So, uh, so after that, uh, uh, uh— I get the, what part am I on right now?
You are on, y'all had, y'all wrote the, and y'all wrote the song. Okay, okay, so. It was just the melody.
We wrote the song. I don't know if you can hear me again. It was just the melody. We wrote the song and it was great. So about 2, I don't know, maybe 2, 3, 4 months later, my house had got broken into. And then Pooh Bear's house had got broken into too. So he called me, he calls me, he's like, "Hey, I heard your house get broken into. Can you give me some details? Like I'm trying to figure out who robbed my house also." So we just talking about that. About that. And at the end of the convo, he's like, man, I'm sorry to hear that, blah, blah, blah. He's like, oh yeah, you made the album. I'm just like, what? Like, what are you talking about? What album? We didn't talk about any albums or anything. He's like, you made the Justin Bieber album. I was like, well, that's a great way to end this conversation. Like, damn, like, that's fire. Like, amazing. I made a Justin Bieber album. Like, and, and the song on the album is, uh, it's on his Changes album. Which got nominated for a Grammy. And the way that Grammy nominations work is if an album is nominated for a Grammy, the producers on that album are nominated for a Grammy, the writers on that album are nominated for a Grammy, and the singers on that album are nominated for a Grammy. So that's in turn how I was nominated for a Grammy for being a producer on a Justin Bieber album.
That's insane.
Yeah.
Like, that's nuts to be on a Justin Bieber album. That's crazy. So now, like, what's going on with the music now? Like, what can we expect? Like, are you diving more into the music now? Are you taking a break? Like, where are you with it now?
I'm locked in, I'm locked in. I have, I probably got like 20 finished songs right now. Yeah, and I got some, I got like 5 with major artists. But unfortunately, some of the major artists are like, in legal trouble right now. So that's the thing about rap artists, like, you're like, you never know, like, might be legal trouble, might be this or that. But yeah, I got a lot of tracks that's just sitting on the shelf right now that I need to put out. I definitely need to lock in and just put them out and just see what the world thinks of them. Mm-hmm. But I'm still locked in the music. I got my little studio set up over here. Like everywhere I go, I put a studio in my house.
What's up everybody? It's Draymond Green. Make sure you subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel below so you don't miss any more of this great content going forward.
