Producer and songwriter Yiming Wei, professionally known as D’Wei, contributed to five tracks on Rico Love’s 12-track R&B album, with credits spanning songwriting, production, and arrangement.
Released on June 26, 2026, Rico Love’s 97 Bad Boy brings together the Grammy-winning songwriter and producer with collaborators including The Runners and producer-songwriter Yiming Wei, professionally known as D’Wei. D’Wei contributed to five of the album’s 12 tracks, beginning with the Q Parker-featured opener “Not Again” and continuing through the closing track, “Each Morning.”
His creative role extended across songwriting, production, and arrangement, with his involvement shifting according to the musical and structural demands of each record.
On “Not Again,” D’Wei is credited as both producer and songwriter and created original musical sections for the track’s intro and outro, directly shaping its opening and conclusion. These additions strengthen the record’s dramatic structure and give the song a more clearly defined musical arc.
D’Wei assumed an especially expansive creative role on “Up In This Room.” In addition to his production and songwriting contributions, he handled the arrangement across the full track, working on its structure, transitions, instrumental development, and movement between sections.
His contribution to “Take It Away” centered on songwriting. The track reflects another side of his work on the album, with greater emphasis placed on composition and the development of the song’s musical ideas.
On “Tell Em” and “Each Morning,” D’Wei again contributed as both a producer and songwriter. He also played a central role in arranging the two records, shaping their progression, transitions, and emotional pacing. His work on “Each Morning” placed him on the final track of the album, giving his contributions a presence at both the beginning and conclusion of the project.
Three of the album’s five D’Wei-credited songs—“Up In This Room,” “Take It Away,” and “Tell Em”—were created and recorded at Woodside Studio, the recording space co-owned by Rico Love and D’Wei. The studio has served as an important creative base for their professional collaboration.
“Those three songs were made in the same place, but each one needed its own identity,” D’Wei says. “Woodside gave us the time and quiet to listen closely and make decisions for the song, not for the clock. That environment became part of the records.”
The album was executive produced by Rico Love, with co-executive production by The Runners, the Florida production duo whose credits include work with Rick Ross, Rihanna, DJ Khaled, and Usher.
“What I value about working with D’Wei is that he understands the record as a whole,” Love says. “Across the five tracks we worked on together, he brought a producer’s sense of structure, a songwriter’s attention to melody and phrasing, and an arranger’s understanding of how each element should serve the song. He has strong creative judgment and knows when an idea needs to be pushed further and when it is already doing exactly what it needs to do. That kind of perspective makes him a valuable creative collaborator because he is not simply contributing to individual parts of a track—he is thinking about how the entire record comes together.”
D’Wei’s extensive involvement in 97 Bad Boy builds on an established professional relationship with Rico Love and Division One, encompassing previous recording sessions and projects across R&B, pop, and international music production. On 97 Bad Boy, that collaboration extends across five songs within a single album.
“Being part of five records on one album is completely different from having one song on a project,” D’Wei says. “You have to think about the whole story, where the energy rises, where it needs space, and how every record serves the artist. My goal was to help Rico build a complete listening experience.”
Across 97 Bad Boy, D’Wei’s contributions span five of the album’s 12 tracks and encompass production, songwriting, and arrangement, extending from the opening record through the album’s conclusion. Together with his work at Woodside Studio and his established collaboration with Rico Love, the project reflects the breadth of his creative role within contemporary R&B production and his ability to contribute not only to individual songs, but to the musical structure and continuity of a full-length record.
