Brent Kolatalo

Brent Kolatalo is an American mixer, record producer, engineer and songwriter based in New York City. Kolatalo has worked with numerous artists and musicians, including Kanye West, Jay-Z, Eminem, Drake, Bruno Mars, X Ambassadors, Future, Chris Webby, Ella Henderson, Taylor Swift, Lorde, OneRepublic, Lady Gaga and Lana Del Rey among others.

He has worked on several albums such as, To Pimp a Butterfly, Uptown Special, If You're Reading This it's too Late, Based On a T.R.U. Story, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Watch the Throne, Just Charlie, Late Registration and The College Dropout among others.

Life and career

Kolatalo was born in Barberton and grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. He began practicing guitar when he was a kid, one of his tutors was Jeff Martin.

He attended Lakota West High School in West Chester, Ohio and graduated in 2000. In 2002, he went to Berklee College of Music in Boston, during summers he was a trainee at Avatar studios. Kolatalo dropped out in 2004 after working on Kanye West debut studio album, The College Dropout which earning several nominations at the 47th Grammy Awards.

In 2007, Kolatalo started The Skywalkers, a production team with his partner Ken Lewis which has been renamed, Katalyst in 2011.

Kolatalo's songwriting credits include "The Blacker the Berry", Kendrick Lamar's track, which appeared on his album To Pimp a Butterfly (2015). He is the engineer on multi-platinum Mark Ronson's single featuring Bruno Mars, "Uptown Funk". In 2016, Kolatalo recorded and played on the track "Come to Mama" from Lady Gaga's album, Joanne. In 2019, he has worked on Taylor Swift's album, Lover.

Awards and recognition

He is a three-time Grammy nominee by name and has worked on over sixteen Grammy nominated albums. Having nominated for his work as audio and mixer engineer on works such as Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly (2015), Eminem‘s Eminem (Recovery) (2010) and Kanye West’s The College Dropout (2004).

Grammy awards

Discography