When it comes to organizing song camps, Grammy-nominated producer Don Mills goes for comfort. No hassles, no restrictions, no delegating. Just organic, go-with-the-flow ambiance, and the lure of what feels natural when it comes to choosing creative partners.
“I don’t like to assign people to rooms per se,” says Mills from Rezort Miami, the four-room luxury studio he established with producer Illmind in Florida four years ago, and now owns single-handedly. “Usually my camps are, we show up, we hang out, and people kind of pick their own little tribe when they go into rooms, if that makes sense. That seems to be the best way to do it – and the results are really, really good. All the songs that come out of our camps are very high-level.”
Mills – the professional pseudonym for Belgrade-born, Toronto-and-Mississauga-raised Miloš Angelov – knows of what he speaks: he previously organized a song camp for Sony Music Publishing in Toronto, and previously participated in the SOCAN Kenekt Miami Latin Song Camp in 2022.
Select the image to access the video of Kehlani’s “Folded,” co-written by Don Mills
And he’s continuing the tradition at Rezort Miami… intermittently. “They’re quite tiring, because they usually last four or five days. And I, as the host, would just go to all the rooms and make sure that I’m socializing with everyone, ” he explains. “It involves a lot of people playing me music, and me jumping on a lot of the songs too, with them saying, ‘Yo, Don, bring a guitar! Bring a bass! We need some drums!’ So every two months, I’ll do camps.”
Mills says it was a camp type of situation, over five days at Rezort Miami, that led to the creation of “Folded,” the Top 10 Kehlani hit – which is nominated for both Best R&B Song and Best R&B Performance at the 2026 Grammy Awards, scheduled for L.A. on Feb. 1. The song has been streamed almost 310 million times on Spotify, and viewed almost 60 million times on YouTube.
“When Kehlani came in, I felt the energy, this urgency that she had,” Mills recalls. “It said, ‘I’m leaving here with something.’ She had that kind of vibe, of, ‘I’m here to write great songs; my writers are here, my producers are here; I’m at Don Mills’ house, let’s have fun, let’s make dope R&B.’
“That was the plan from the moment she walked in, and we did that 10 hours a day. She had access to the whole house – it’s a very homey vibe, a house with a pool and four studios. And I think that’s the real success of me being inspired to do my thing, and other people coming in: to get away from the corporate setting and the corporate studios.”
“When Kehlani came in, I felt the energy, this urgency that she had”
He’s also already begun to receive dividends for his Grammy association. “At this point, people are texting or DM-ing to get in with me,” says Mills. “There’s self-validation in it, but also saying I’m Grammy-nominated, or Grammy-winning, has a different kind of a ring. I’ve always wanted this.”
The producer has achieved his status through a remarkable skill set of talents and connections. With bass as his main instrument, Mills – whose Applewood Secondary School contemporaries included future Prince guitarist Donna Grantis, and multi-platinum rapper PartyNextDoor – became an in-demand session player for R&B and hip-hop artists. Those included Scarborough rapper Saukrates and Baby Blue Soundcrew, and Mills has also toured with R&B singers Ray Robinson and Divine Brown. He also spent eight years touring and recording with singer-songwriter Matthew Good.
Select the image to access the video of Juice WRLD’s “Maze,” co-written by Don Mills
His biggest ally has been Boi-1da, who took Mills under his wing as a producer. That association resulted in Mills contributing to the song “Maze,” on the late Juice WRLD’s 2019 chart-topping album Death Race For Love. “Maze has been streamed almost 305 million times on Spotify, and viewed more than 35 million times on YouTube. It also led to collaborations on projects by J. Cole, Maroon5, Giveon, Offset, and Alessia Cara.
“1da is an old friend of mine from back in the day, when he and Drake were starting,” Mills remembers. “We met a couple of times at parties, then lost touch because I was in a rock band. He was blowing up, and we re-connected at an industry party in 2016. I told him I’d started producing, and he said, ‘Send me some stuff.’ I texted him, and we still talk every day. I signed a publishing deal with his joint venture [Sam Fam Publishing] with Sony Music Publishing ”
As a producer, Mills says he prefers an in-person presence. Although he’s participated in a few remote projects, he’s rather abstain from haphazardly sending beats. “The only time I sent a beat where it worked was to Leon Thomas [in 2023],” he says. “That happened for ‘Breaking Point,’ because Leon is so capable of taking stems, loading them up, and finishing the song himself.”
While most might have expected Mills to re-locate to either Atlanta or L.A., he settled on Miami. “I went the opposite direction,” Mills explains. “I do music that’s not done in Miami, if that makes sense. If I go to L.A., there are guys who do similar genres to me. So, people won’t have any urgency to come see me if they can go to another producer who does that live rock, or whatever, thing. I wanted to go to a place where there are no dominoes… and that was most definitely Miami; my gut feeling was right.
“It’s different: more Latin-heavy and more Gospel-heavy. I’ve always loved Gospel, and Black music in general. I just wanted to be someone with a different skill set, in a city where there’s not a lot of guys like me. Here, guys are either reggaeton, or straight-up hip-hop. I’m kind of in-between, and I also do a lot of rock, psychedelic rock, alternative R&B, and alternative pop. I’m more in that bag.”