Miki Hellerbach

West Hollywood

Journalist, Writer and Reporter at Freelance

Me on the 🖊 & 🎤 many places, Substack: INSIDE THE CREDITS, Email: [email protected], IG: @mikihellerbach

Articles

A Tribute to the Lasting Legacy of Dikembe Mutombo

1 week ago | okayplayer.com | Miki Hellerbach

For millennial kids with middle school growth spurts, or ones who were just tall and played center, Dikembe Mutombo was a central figure. If you blocked a shot from the year 1997 through 2009, it was almost impulsive to want to do his iconic finger wag with the accompanying “no, no, no.” Since the big man’s tragic passing in September of 2024, I’ve been pondering what it was that made that move so lasting.
Inside The Credits 061: Ryan Beatty & Ethan Gruska

1 week ago | insidethecredits.substack.com | Miki Hellerbach

This post is long overdue. I started doing Inside The Credits at the top of 2024 and was locked in on coming out of the gate with producers with big catalogs and cool patterns I’d noticed. I was also focused on staying reactive to music that was coming out in real time. So some projects, and the producers who made them, slipped by the wayside as far as me diving deep on their instrumental impact. My favorite album of 2023, and perhaps all the 2020s thus far, is Ryan Beatty’s Calico.
10 Things You Didn't Kn...

2 weeks ago | complex.com | Miki Hellerbach

A$AP Rocky’s sophomore album, 'AT.LONG.LAST.A$AP,' marked a hard left turn as the rapper embraced more psychedelic sounds. Its legacy may be more enduring than it first appeared. May 23, 2025Bryan Steffy/Getty Images for Drai's Beachclub-NightclubComing off of his debut studio album LONG.LIVE.A$AP, ASAP Rocky was in a bit of a conundrum.
Inside The Credits 060: The Spot Producers

2 weeks ago | insidethecredits.substack.com | Miki Hellerbach

So…this will be a bit of a break from our regularly scheduled programming. First, I will be expanding the definition, as it exists on this Substack, of the term “producer” to include film. The reason for this is I have begun to launch a promotional campaign with my team for the interview show of my dreams. "The Spot” is an episodic series exploring the integral connection between music, culture, and community through the intimate lens of food.
Inside The Credits 059: HunnyMoon Mountain by Xavier Omar, The Producers

3 weeks ago | insidethecredits.substack.com | Miki Hellerbach

The best r&b album of the year thus far, easily, is Xavier Omar’s arguable opus HunnyMoon Mountain. While Omar’s timeless tone centers the energy, where the album truly thrives is in the variance in the production and composition. Omar maintains a smooth r&b core to his deep dive into relationship complexity, but uses an array of adjacent influences to expand that world while keeping it fluid.
Inside The Credits 058: Brad Cook

1 month ago | insidethecredits.substack.com | Miki Hellerbach

It happened again. I found a new artist who lit up my ear and I looked inside the credits. I found their producer and went back through their catalog. I found that they helped create other stuff that I love. Let me introduce you to Brad Cook, the mastermind behind the boards of the just released Jensen McRae album I can’t get out of my head and can’t stop listening to.
Inside Music Monthly 016: April 2025

1 month ago | insidethecredits.substack.com | Miki Hellerbach

What’s happening for the sixteenth time paid subscribers?! After a little over a year of INSIDE THE CREDITS you committed your money to my writing. Your investment makes me feel deep gratitude. So, I’m gifting you a breakdown of my favorite songs that have dropped this month and each month of the year with some words to accompany my reverence for the tracks.
Inside The Credits 057: Kaytranada

1 month ago | insidethecredits.substack.com | Miki Hellerbach

Don’t get it twisted, Kaytranada has a lot of great songs, with some range of sounds. I remember first becoming aware of him when he did his collaborative Ocean & Montana ep with LA rapper Buddy in 2017. Their chemistry felt pure as his contained two step cadences merged with Buddy’s Devin the Dude/Nate Dogg coded textures. But there was something about Kaytranada’s production that always worked best to me with a smooth melody.
Inside The Credits 056: Ian Kirkpatrick

1 month ago | insidethecredits.substack.com | Miki Hellerbach

Sometimes numbers align, and since this is ITC 56, it’s pretty cool that 6 is such an important number for this piece. As the subheading indicates, I made a pretty cool six song discovery. Ian Kirkpatrick, a pop music wizard I’ve come to find out, achieved a whopping feat of producing the best song on an impactful six albums—at least to my ears. The impetus for this discovery is, to me, the most interesting part. I’ve been running the new Jessie Reyez album PAID IN MEMORIES a lot since it dropped.
Inside The Credits 055: 2hollis

1 month ago | insidethecredits.substack.com | Miki Hellerbach

“What’s coolest about 2hollis is the way it feels like he’s Trojan-horsing nerdy effects and anarchic hardstyle energy into songs that would otherwise appeal to your millennial coworker who loves big-tent vocal EDM.”- Kieran Press Reynolds via Pigeons & Planes 2024Sometimes, another writer puts it better than I ever could. Especially, when the person they are throwing some shade at via their critique, at least in some part, aligns with who you are.