Ken Lewis

Ken Lewis is an American record producer, mixing engineer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist based in New York City. He has been nominated by name for his contributions to 7 Grammy-nominated projects including on Eminem's Recovery, Kanye West's The College Dropout, FUN.'s Some Nights, and others. He has also contributed production, songwriting, engineering, arranging and/or instrumentation and vocals to numerous gold, platinum, and diamond records including Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars' "Uptown Funk", Lil Wayne and Drake's "Believe Me", and Kanye West and Jamie Foxx's "Gold Digger" (among many others). He is the creator of two web-based instructional platforms: Audio School Online and Music School Online. Lewis is also half the production team, Katalyst, with Brent Kolatalo.

Early life and education

Ken Lewis was born and grew up in the Cincinnati, Ohio area. As a child, he showed an interest in music and learned how to play the guitar at age 10. He attended Lakota High School in Butler County, Ohio and graduated in 1988. After high school, he went to the Berklee College of Music in Boston, graduating in 1991.

Career

After graduating from Berklee, Lewis moved to New York City where he got a job as an assistant in a music studio. He worked his way up to engineer at the studio before becoming a freelance producer and engineer a few years after that. Public Enemy, and numerous others. In October 2000, he was among the first mixing engineers to be signed to New York-based Sound on Sound Studios' engineer and producer management arm known as SOS Management. Lewis later said that he barely slept for the final two weeks of production on The College Dropout, calling the effort "probably the worst thing I've ever done to my body."

The following year, he created music for West's single "Gold Digger" featuring Jamie Foxx, although he went uncredited on that song. Throughout this period, Lewis worked with fellow Lakota High School alumnus and he (along with Alvin Fields) provided the chant vocals on "Power". He contributed to five songs on the Jay-Z and Kanye West album, Watch the Throne, in various roles including writer, horn arranger, musician, vocalist, engineer, and accordion player.

In 2011 and 2012, he was noted for creating the "big drums" for both Fun.'s "We Are Young" and Alicia Keys' "Girl on Fire". That year, In the same year, he also contributed to Mars's album, 24K Magic, playing additional horns on the track, "Perm". In the following years, Lewis has worked on multiple BTS projects (You Never Walk Alone, Love Yourself: Tear, etc.) and Taylor Swift's 2019 album, Lover. With Brent Kolatalo as part of their production team Katalyst, Lewis has produced songs for Future, Ciara, Eminem, X Ambassadors, Kendrick Lamar, K Michelle,

In 2025, he started mentoring aspiring DJ and music producer, Tommy Pruett (DJ TommyCooks) of the University of Dayton. https://soundcloud.com/djtommy_cooks Nominations and awards

Year Award Category Nominee(s) Result Ref. 2005 Grammy Award Album of the Year Confessions by Usher The College Dropout by Kanye West 2006 Late Registration Record of the Year "Gold Digger" by Kanye West (feat. Jamie Foxx) 2011 Album of the Year Recovery by Eminem 2013 Some Nights by Fun. Record of the Year "We Are Young" by Fun.