Crada (producer)
Christian Kalla, known professionally as Crada is a Grammy-nominated and multi platinum award-winning producer, instrumentalist, mix engineer and songwriter from Marktleuthen, Germany. He has produced and written for artists and groups such as Drake, Kid Cudi, Jay Rock, Talib Kweli, The Lox, Culcha Candela, La Fouine and Tim Bendzko among others. He is currently one of the most sought-after producers in Europe. Early life. Born and raised in a small town in northern Bavaria, he started DJing at the age of 13. By the age of 18, without any formal musical training, he started using  the Magix Music Maker beat-making program. A few years later, he produced his first major record on the very same producing software. After leaving his hometown he studied music at Mannheim's University of Popular Music and Music Business, where he graduated in 2009. Crada was influenced by many kinds of music including uk breakbeat records, rap and electronic music in general. Career. Crada was producing and djing in a three piece band called Sceptic from 2001 to 2005. After the group split up he went on to work with his mentor Ali Rasul (formerly front man of rap  group Square One) on his 'Opium' Mixtape series. In 2005 Crada enrolled at Germany's most prestigious music school Popakademie Baden-Württemberg in Mannheim. He also worked with several other German artists by that time including Samy Deluxe, Curse, Olli Banjo. Following the collaboration with Ali Rasul he was introduced to his managers DJ Kitsune and Markus Ernst who he worked with until early 2017. In 2008 Crada started doing several writing/production trips to New York. Crada's first US Single Release with The Lox is known to be a direct result of those sessions. In the following years  he contributed music for the debut albums of Drake and Kid Cudi and gained international recognition. Crada has received 3x US Platinum Award, 1x US Gold Award, 3× Platinum Award Germany, 4× Gold Award Germany, 1× Platinum Award Canada, 2× Gold Award UK, and 2× Platinum Award France until 2016. On November 20, 2013, Crada signed to Starting Lineup Music Publishing/BMG Rights Management (Berlin) for an exclusive worldwide publishing deal.