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It’s the centerpiece of “Jesus Is King,” Kanye West’s heavily hyped, highly anticipated new album.

“The Devil had my soul, I can’t lie,” West confesses on fifth track “On God.” “I could’ve died, but I survived, that’s on God.”

And the ’80s synth wave West raps over, the melody under his flow – that was made in Milwaukee, by producer Michael “CameOne” Cerda. 

“When I first played that song, I felt like I was floating,” Cerda told the Journal Sentinel. “To hear Kanye West rap over something I made, the feeling was crazy.”

The two-minutes-and-sixteen-seconds of glory for Cerda has been 12 years in the making, when he became obsessed with music production as a teenager, inspired by his friend and mentor, local music producer Alex Vazquez. 

“When I was 17 years old, I was making beats every single day,” Cerda, 29, said. 

Vazquez also convinced Cerda to participate in the Miltown Beatdown producers tournament in 2012 – where he won the whole thing.

“It gave me the confidence that what I was doing in the studio was worth pursuing,” Cerda said.

He continued to hone his craft, settling into a routine where on weekends, when he wasn’t working his day job, he would “get my coffee and drive around for two hours around Milwaukee, just listening to music samples.” Finding inspiration in the music and sights in the city, he would head back to his studio and “make beats until I would go to bed,” Cerda said.

In 2016, Cerda won the Rémy Producers competition series. With his winnings, he bought analog synthesizers and trained himself to be a better keyboardist, which became a key turning point for his career.

“At that point I was doing a lot of sampling, but I ended up developing a unique sound with synthesizer heavy compositions,” Cerda said. “I was inspired by ’80s funk, progressive rock, ’80s synthwave, and meshed all of those tones and textures together.”

Cerda started selling sample packs, which opened doors and helped him pay rent. A fellow Milwaukee producer, Carlos Martin, who goes by the stage name Rowan, moved to Los Angeles and took some of Cerda’s samples to pitch around town. That led to Cerda’s first major credit, as the co-writer and co-producer of Rick Ross’ “White Lines” on this August’s “Port of Miami 2” album.

“That has been a career goal since I was 17,” Cerda said of landing on a Ross track.

Continuing to promote his compositions on Instagram, Cerda connected with a rep from West’s label, Good Music, earlier this year. Then he got a short text message about a package he made that stunned him: “Hold this for Ye.”

“When I read that I didn’t believe it,” Cerda said. But this summer, he got a call from his contact at Good Music.

“He broke the news to me, ‘You’re going to be on the Kanye West album,'” Cerda said. “‘Kanye West is loving this song.’ And the time I am hearing him telling me this my heart starts beating fast.” 

A couple of weeks later, footage started spreading online from West’s surprise “Sunday Service” pop-up shows, in which he performed songs from “Jesus Is King” – and Cerda saw him “bouncing up and down dancing to the music I made.” And not only did Cerda’s music make the album — he shares co-writing and co-producing credits with one of hip-hop’s most sought-after producers, Pi’erre Bourne.  

Cerda hopes the “King” credit will open more doors, but his plan is to stay in Milwaukee. His girlfriend runs Ruby’s Bagels at the Zocalo Food Park, and he hopes he can help her set up a brick-and-mortar store.

“If I can continue to produce music at this level it will lead to enough revenue to invest in that dream,” Cerda said. 

“After putting in 10,000 hours to get good and to see it pay off in this way, it’s unreal,” Cerda said. “After being able to work with Kanye West, the sky is the limit now.”

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Contact Piet at (414) 223-5162 or plevy@journalsentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter at @pietlevy or Facebook at facebook.com/PietLevyMJS.

Piet also talks concerts, local music and more on “TAP’d In” with Jordan Lee. Hear it at 8 a.m. Thursdays on WYMS-FM (88.9), or wherever you get your podcasts.

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