\u201cIt all feels surreal,\u201d Chain told The Times of Israel. \u201cThis is stuff that I would have dreamt of when I was younger.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 33-year-old Chain, who grew up in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, has gained significant recognition within the Latin and hip-hop music sectors in recent years for his versatile production style, which blends modern trap, reggaeton, and pop elements. In addition to Bad Bunny, who is arguably the top name in the music world right now, Chain has produced music for superstar rappers Sleepy Hallow (\u201c2055<\/a>\u201c), Drake (\u201cRich Baby Daddy<\/a>\u201c), and Post Malone (\u201cBack to Texas<\/a>\u201c).<\/p>\n Chain doesn\u2019t yet know whether \u201cEl Cl\u00fab\u201d will be among the songs\u00a0Bad Bunny performs in his 12-minute Super Bowl set, he said. The singer, who has won six Grammy Awards, 17 Latin Grammy Awards, eight Billboard Music Awards, and 13 Lo Nuestro Awards, has a lot of great material to choose from, Chain noted.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tGet The Times of Israel’s Daily Edition \t\t\t\tBy signing up, you agree to the terms<\/a><\/p>\n Chain works under the stage name UV Killin Em, which is a nod to his Hebrew name, Yuval, and the 2010 Fabolous song \u201cYou Be Killin Em.\u201d<\/a> He is open about the fact that he is Israeli, and hasn\u2019t suffered at all from it professionally, he said.<\/p>\n \t Music production is a complex process that can involve many different talents, including songwriting, arranging, and sometimes even playing the instruments used in a song, Chain explained. While producing songs was a much simpler process decades ago, many tracks today involve multiple producers located in different studios around the world, collaborating in a process that can take years. Some contributions can be as small as a several-second beat used in part of a song.<\/p>\n Chain was one of nine producers of the song \u201cEl Cl\u00fab,\u201d and his contribution appears during the first minute of the song. Asked whether that makes him, technically speaking, a Grammy winner himself, Chain seemed a bit unsure.<\/p>\n \u201cI need to figure it out,\u201d Chain said disarmingly. \u201cI\u2019m pretty sure everyone who was involved gets a certificate, but only people who were involved with more than 50 percent of the album actually got a trophy. It might be safer to word it as \u2018a producer on the Grammy Award-winning album.’\u201d<\/p>\n Encounters with antisemitism<\/p>\n Chain, who moved from Tel Aviv to Los Angeles during the coronavirus epidemic, wears a Star of David when he works, posts online about Israel\u2019s war with Hamas, and doesn\u2019t hide his Jewish identity.<\/p>\n \u201cAt just about every session, someone comes over and asks where I\u2019m from. I never hide that I\u2019m from Israel,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve never lost any work because of it.\u201d<\/p>\n Chain recalled one incident when he was harassed online after he appeared in the credits for a K-Pop song in South Korea.<\/p>\n \u201cAs soon as people found out, I started getting flooded with messages and comments. Some of them were kind of crazy,\u201d Chain said. \u201cBut when I went into the profiles of some of these people, I saw that they were almost all from Malaysia and Pakistan.\u201d<\/p>\n \t \u201cI saw a whole K-Pop Reddit thread about whether it\u2019s okay to hate me because I\u2019m Israeli,\u201d Chain continued. \u201cI just find it amusing that people are spending their time deciding whether to hate someone because of where they are from.\u201d<\/p>\n Amazing breaks<\/p>\n \t Chain\u2019s venture into music production started relatively quietly. Born in New York in 1992 to an Israeli mother and British Jewish father, he moved to Jerusalem with his family when he was 5 years old. (Chain\u2019s paternal grandfather was Ernst Boris Chain<\/a>, who shared the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Alexander Fleming for the discovery of penicillin.) After serving for three years in the army, Chain studied music production at Hebrew University, and when the pandemic hit, he moved in with his mom in Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n During that time, when much of the world was stuck indoors, Chain picked up the guitar he\u2019d received as a bar mitzvah gift and started playing again. He also started following Reddit threads about people creating and selling music from their bedrooms. He began to do the same.<\/p>\n \u201cI started getting good feedback from total strangers, and that led me to posting on social media and building a site,\u201d Chain recalled. \u201cAnd that\u2019s when I met a few producers who asked me to move to LA and be part of their musical collective.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\n\t\tFile: Bad Bunny performs during the first show of his 30-date concert residency at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico Jos\u00e9 Miguel Agrelot, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, July 11, 2025. (AP\/Alejandro Granadillo)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-02-07-at-19.40.31-2-640x400.jpeg\")
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\n\t\tIsraeli-American music producer Yuval Chain. (The Revels Group)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-02-05-at-5.54.52-PM-e1770378074951-640x400.jpeg\")
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\n\t\tIsraeli-American music producer Yuval Chain in an undated publicity photo. (Ohad Kab)<\/p>\n
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