Treated Crew isn’t just a rap group. People in the crew just so happen to rap and Treated is our brand. The music is like the campaign; it’s the theme music. You gotta have people believe in your campaign. With Treated Crew it’s dope because we got to see so much stuff as consumers—and now we are the producers, so we get to do it exactly how we want to.
Million Dollar Mano, 28, is a music producer, tour DJ for Kanye West, and the founder of the rap-group-slash-fashion-label Treated Crew. —Miles Raymer
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I started making music around eighth grade. My cousin Hollywood and his brother Miles got turntables, and I was going over to their crib. I always wanted to DJ. My mom owned a day care center on 83rd and Ingleside. She had this turntable at the day care and I used to fuck with it and with this 45 Fisher Price player. My mom still had her old 45 player from when she was a teenager. She had just a lot of junk that she bought from thrift stores. My mom hoards a lot of dope-ass shit.
For all this favorable stuff to happen now, it’s like the light is finally shining. These things didn’t just come to me. No, I went out there and I had to get these opportunities. It was dope for me to work with Ye [Kanye West] because I’ve known him since I was 18. A lot of good people still kept me in their circle. They seen me doing everything that I could with my brand and respectfully building myself as a producer/DJ.
Index: 2012 People Issue
