Alex Da Kid playfully refers to himself as “your favourite producer’s favourite producer.” That might come off as a bit cocky, were it not for the fact that music videos for Alex Da Kid’s production have received over half a billion views on VEVO.

At the age of 19, Alexander Grant was a football player for Bristol City F.C. in England. Like many other hip-hop producers, Grant started getting interested in music when a friend of his turned him on to a type of music production software called Fruity Loops. This was enough to whet his appetite for music creation. After obtaining a bachelor’s degree in audio technology, Alex started producing music of his own, taking a unique melodic approach to hip-hop production techniques. His beats caught the attention of Universal Music’s publishing group, and a move to the United States in 2010 would set him up for a run of three Top 10 single in less than two years.

Once he was living in the states, Alex Da Kid co-produced Nicki Minaj’s first single “Massive Attack” with Sean Garrett. His work on “Massive Attack” gave Alex some initial buzz, but he became a full-fledged industry favourite after teaming up with B.o.B. and Hayley Williams (of Paramore) on the massive summer hit “Airplanes.” Alex’s melodic approach to hip-hop was proven to be a success on the charts, which led to him working with Eminem on “Love The Way You Lie,” a song that went to #1 in over 30 countries, and spent seven consecutive weeks at the summit of the Billboard Hot 100.

Alex Da Kid isn’t the most prolific producer — he has produced fewer than fifteen songs in the past two years. It’s a matter of quality, not quantity, given the fact that almost every song he’s worked on has appeared on some segment of the Billboard Charts.

Here are some of Alex Da Kid’s biggest hits for this edition of the Friday Mixtape.