From the Classroom to the Cutting-Edge
By MJ Manning
USC Thornton Music Industry & Music Production alum Juan Razuri catapults to the Grammy Awards post-graduation with his award-winning immersive mix engineering.
“I don’t think anyone at the label knew it was gonna have this much of a cultural impact.” said Juan Razuri (BS ‘24), Grammy Award-winning graduate of the USC Thornton Music Industry and Music Production programs.
After months of waiting in the wings at Top Dawg Entertainment, a label managed by another USC Thornton Music Industry alum, Keaton Smith (BS ‘16), Razuri was given the opportunity of a lifetime. Then, an intern and recent graduate of Thornton, he was assigned to create an immersive mix for the track “BOOM BAP,” the second single off Doechii’s then-in-the-works mixtape, Alligator Bites Never Heal (2024). The only problem? He had four hours to get it done.
In the spring of his senior year, majoring in Music Industry and minoring in Music Production, Razuri enrolled in double platinum-selling mixing engineer Brian Malouf’s MTEC 499 – Special Topics lecture on “Immersive Audio Mixing,” focusing on mixing music in Dolby Atmos. By then, Razuri had spent his four years at Thornton dabbling with ideas of different careers in music production, but was still looking for his niche.
At the time, Razuri was the co-director of Artist and Repertoire (A&R) at USC’s student-run music label 840 West on top of being a vocalist, songwriter, violinist, guitarist, drummer/percussionist, producer and music supervisor for several student films from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, just across the sidewalk from Thornton.
Unbeknownst to him, Malouf’s class and learning the art of immersive audio mixing would soon come to shape his future, quickly catapulting him to the cutting-edge of recorded music innovation. Dolby Atmos, developed by Dolby Laboratories in June of 2012, was initially engineered for motion pictures with Disney/Pixar’s Brave (2012) as its inaugural showcase film. The new form of mix engineering quickly leaped from screens into studios, taking the music industry by storm. More than a decade later, its application in both film and music is defined by creating an immersive listening experience that feels as though you are completely enveloped in sound.
“Dolby Atmos allows up to 128 individual sounds to be precisely placed and moved in three-dimensional space throughout the cinema with lifelike depth, detail and clarity, putting you at the center of the story,” Jed Harmsen said, head of Cinema & Group Entertainment at Dolby Laboratories in an interview with Digital Cinema Report in 2019.
Taught by a world-class studio engineer like Brian Malouf, who has mixed and produced for legendary artists like Michael Jackson, Madonna and Prince, among many others – Razuri found himself thrown into the deep end of this new technical method of experiential surround mixing.
“I felt like a kid discovering the format,” Razuri said. “Figuring out things that I liked and sounded good to me — I felt like I really came into my own.”
Razuri noted that there were classes where Malouf would have students practice creating these immersive mixes in Dolby Atmos, but only giving them until the end of class before they had to turn in their work and present it for feedback. The challenge was always to create something with only the files in front of them and two hours on the clock.
“We were just starting to learn and then immediately [Malouf] was like, ‘Okay, you’re gonna do your own mix,’” Razuri said. Malouf emphasized the importance of developing the skill to be able to turn out high quality work in very short periods of allotted time, a skill that later netted Razuri his first Grammy Award in 2024 for his contribution to Doechii’s Alligator Bites Never Heal.
Malouf, who served as the senior vice president of A&R for RCA Records NY and vice president and head of A&R for Walt Disney Records, is now an associate professor of practice in USC Thornton’s Music Production and Music Industry programs.
Bringing his industry connections to the classroom for his students to benefit from, they hear experiences from such luminaries as Bob Clearmountain, world-renowned mixing engineer and producer who worked with the likes of David Bowie, Paul McCartney, Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen and The Rolling Stones. In Razuri’s senior year, Clearmountain was invited as a guest speaker to review their final projects.
“We really got tested and pushed to do something out of our comfort zone,” Razuri said. “[Clearmountain] would listen and give his feedback to everyone. Then it was my turn. He listened to it and he said… ‘You did everything the complete opposite way than what I would have done. I would never have thought to have done it the way you did, but I liked it. I really, really liked it.’ That’s when I realized, I’ve got something special here. I need to take this to the next level. I want to be the Atmos guy.”
That same semester, USC Thornton held its very own career fair dedicated to connecting its students with jobs and internship opportunities in the music industry post-graduation. One of the tables that year had two A&R representatives from Top Dawg Entertainment, then-home to Kendrick Lamar, SZA and Doechii.
Walking into that career fair, Razuri was unsure about his future.
“I was at a crossroads,” he said. “As long as it’s in one of the things that I care about, like production, engineering, A&R, sync, [I’d] take it”. Speaking to the representatives from Top Dawg Entertainment, the conversation quickly turned to his work in Dolby Atmos, which shortly after landed him the internship upon graduating in May of 2024.
“I was just a regular intern at their studios, doing the recording stuff, being a runner,” Razuri said. “It all developed from the beginning [of] me being there…‘This guy knows how to mix in Atmos.’”
His skills in Atmos lay waiting for a few months until the opportunity finally came.
“‘We need you to do a mix.’ they told me. ‘It’s time.’” Razuri said.
Hot on the heels of “BOOM BAP,” Razuri completed immersive mixes for each of the 19 songs on the mixtape, Alligator Bites Never Heal, in just a week and a half.
“It was the most fun, most stressful time of my life,” Razuri said. “They loved it, they were like ‘Let’s get you connected to her main stereo mix recording engineer.’” The album would later earn three nominations that year for Best New Artist (for Doechii), Best Rap Performance for “NISSAN ALTIMA,” and the coveted Grammy Award for Best Rap Album.
By the end of the night, Doechii, Top Dawg Entertainment and Thornton’s very own Juan Razuri took home top honors for Best Rap Album. On that night, Razuri, being recognized for his immersive mix engineering, joined the school’s ever-growing legacy of Grammy Award-winning alumni and faculty.
“[Malouf’s class] prepared me so well,” Razuri said. “I would not have been ready if it weren’t for him. Not at all. Everything has set me up for this to have happened. All my experiences, all the things I learned, all my past internships, the people that I’ve met, all the music I’ve gotten to work on. It’s all led up to it.”
But it wasn’t only his world-class education that set him up for success. The obstacles that Razuri has faced, being a first-generation college student from a family of Peruvian immigrants, survivor of childhood cancer and an orphan of his father has only made him more resilient.
“[I started] with absolutely zero connections, just a dream,” Razuri said. “I’ve known from a young age that if I want anything, I’m gonna have to work for it. I know if I’m gonna dedicate time and energy to something I want, I want it to be this.”
To Razuri, the key to success is having a sense of empathy and understanding for those around you, something that he attributes to his lived experiences, as well as his education at USC.
“At the end [of the day], the music industry is a people business,” Razuri said. “I value every person, no matter if they’re an assistant or if they’re an executive, it doesn’t matter. I will value you equally. I want to treat you with the respect you deserve.”
Now, Razuri is more prolific than ever, continuing to work with anyone from chart-topping heavy-hitters like Doechii and Ab-Soul to emerging artists on the come-up like Alemeda and Ray Vaughn.
Razuri recently collaborated with Apple Music to make a playlist of his favorite works, as a part of their campaign to highlight the music engineers and producers behind the pop chart’s biggest hits. The majority of the songs in Apple Music’s catalogue are all compatible with Dolby Atmos, providing the immersive experience at home.
Razuri is now a recognized member of the Recording Academy’s 2025 New Member Class in the Producers & Engineers Wing, getting to help celebrate music innovation at the Grammys and help shape the future of the music industry through philanthropy and advocacy.
“Being someone who works with literally everyone from major label artists to developing independent artists, I don’t care about how big a project is. If you have really cool music, I want to work with you,” Razuri said. “I care about the music and the art, USC always gave me this outlook, this way of thinking. If one person wins, everyone wins.”Razuri makes his return to the 68th Grammy Awards February 1st, nominated for Record of the Year for his contribution as an Atmos mixer to Doechii’s “Anxiety,” which became both Doechii’s and his first entry to the Billboard Hot 100’s Top Ten. Like many Thornton alumni before him, Razuri continues to be a pioneer in the music industry. Leading by example and dedication to his craft, he proves that hard work in the classroom pays off – all the way to the top of the charts.
Written by MJ Manning, Dean’s List Scholar & Public Relations Major at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
