20 of the most Prolific Music Producers

Breaking down the hitmakers

So, we’ve established that these 20 prolific producers have risen to the top of their game, but how do they compare to each other?

Arif Mardin takes the top spot as the most prolific producer on our list, with 1,079 production credits to his name, closely followed by Lee “Scratch” Perry with 1,018. At the other end of the scale is the late J Dilla with 301 credits and T Bone Burnett with 367.

Arif Mardin also comes out on top as the most diverse producer, working across 13 different genres throughout his career, a feat only matched by George Martin. Despite working across the fewest (6) genres, Lee “Scratch” Perry takes the top spot for the number of different artists worked with, with an impressive 422.

Kanye West comes out on top as the most award-winning producer, taking home 230 music awards in his career so far, followed by Quincy Jones with 33.

Across all 20 of our producers, the average number of records produced each year was 16. However, the Neptunes and Timbaland far exceed that figure, with an average of 31 and 27 annual production credits respectively. In fact, in their most productive year (2002), the Neptunes worked on an incredible 105 different records!