Carl-Mikael Göran "Micke" Berlander (born August 29, 1995)[1][2] known by h… Read Full Bio ↴Carl-Mikael Göran "Micke" Berlander (born August 29, 1995)[1][2] known by his stage names Gud and Rooster (fka Yung Gud & WEST!), is a Swedish DJ and producer well known for being one of the members for rapper Yung Lean's Stockholm-based group Sad Boys. Being influenced by "left-field" music, he began producing at the age of twelve, first making psychedelic trance music, but would not get into hip hop until much later. He did not do well in school, and pursued a career in music before he graduated, which garnered mixed feelings from his father. His production alongside Sad Boys for Yung Lean's music has been well received.

Outside of his Sad Boys career, he released his debut extended play Beautiful, Wonderful in November 2014, and has done production work for acts including Halsey and Deniro Farrar, and remixes of songs by acts including Jacques Greene, Kacy Hill, Meek Mill and Tinashe. These have also garnered a positive critical response from publications including Pigeons & Planes and The Fader. He has stated in a 2014 interview to be very focused on his work with the Sad Boys and his solo material.

Berlander is part of a mixed race family, since his Nigerian grandfather met his grandmother, who was a Swede, in London.[1] Berlander, as well as the other members of the Sad Boys group, have described living in Stockholm as "boring" and "miserable".[3] While he has resided in the city for most of his life, Berlander had once lived in a small urban area called Gnesta, which he opined to be a Swedish equivalent to Kentucky: "Stupid people and alcohol problems, I don't know. It sucks of over there. It's so boring."[2] He said that his mother "liked to spoil me."[2] He did not do well in school, dropping out to pursue a career in music, and his father has always been mixed on this decision; he had always encouraged him to "just go to school and be a good person", saying that “You can't make music without a guitar.”[2] However, Berlander said in a 2014 interview that his dad had been getting a little more supportive and into what he had been doing so far.[2] He also claimed in that same interview that he is sober, although he said that he was wanting to try promethazine "because it's medicine. But the weeds and the speeds – no, not that."[2]

Yung Gud collaborated with S-Type of the LuckyMe record label for the song "Fire", which was released on The Fader on 9 February 2015 as a single off S-Type's EP SV8.[16] "Fire" was also the opener for Astrid Anderson's FW15 show, which S-Type soundtracked for.[16] The two talked about making a track together when they first met each other at one of the Sad Boys concerts, and Gud made some drum parts and sent them to S-Type for him to "do my thing with" two weeks later.[16] Production credits have included rapper Deniro Farrar's single "World On My Shoulders 3.0", which premiered on 27 April 2015,[17] "Blue Prada" by Prada Mane[18] and additional production on "Strange Love", a track by singer Halsey off the deluxe edition of her debut album Badlands.[19]

In 2014, Yung Gud released two remixes of "No Excuse", a track by Canadian producer Jacques Greene. On 30 May 2014, The Fader premiered the recut that was a part of a remix extended play for Greene's three-track record Phantom Vibrate.[20] The magazine described it as a "ecstatically pattering" rework of the song that alleviates "the jagged turns and gun shot sounds of the original to reveal its lushest sonic innards."[20] Joe Price, writing for Complex magazine's website Pigeons & Planes, said that with this remix, Yung Gud had "proven once again that he has legs beyond what many coin as “meme rap.”"[21] Later on, Yung Gud did a much more harsh-sounding "VIP" remix of the track, which starts off alike to Yung Gud's first remix, and then it dives "into a deep chasm of rumbling bass complete with a hammering rhythm that rarely lets up", Price wrote.[22] It was issued on 20 December,[22] garnering 800,000 plays in eighteen days on SoundCloud.[23] Yung Gud's "spacey and dreamy" re-edit for "2 On" by Tinashe, which came out on 6 September 2014, was reviewed by a Complex magazine critic who highlighted its "interesting drum work" and Tinashe's vocal performance fitting with the beat.[10]

In 2015, Yung Gud distributed two remixes. On 28 June, Yung Gud did a remix of rapper Meek Mill's track "Monster".[24] Constant Gardner of Pigeons & Planes made note of the re-cut's "chest-shaking" bass, a layer of "icy" synth lines and "twinkling" glockenspiel-style sounds, and also said that "This is Meek Mill taken from the streets of Philly to his throne in a sparkling Arctic ice palace, and it’s awesome."[24] Yung Gud remixed Kacy Hill's "Foreign Fields", which the re-edit was released on 30 September as a promotional single of her debut EP Bloo.[25] A Pigeons & Planes journalist wrote that Yung Gud's reworking turns the original song "into a grand experience", opining that it takes it into "new heights with heavier basslines and haunting production."[26] A Stuff.co.nz critic compared it to Katy Perry's track "Dark Horse" due to its nature sound effects and a "marching band drum beat".[27]