It was sometime in 2008 that Henry Walter got a message from his lawyer.
A CD with beats that Walter created had been used in a writing session for what his lawyer would only describe at the time as an A-list musician.
For Walter, who spent four of his teenage years living in Halifax before moving to Toronto in 2004, it was a moment of validation.
“It made me feel like, ‘OK, I’m not crazy. I can do this,” said Walter, who is musically known as Cirkut.
The beats from that song were used on Britney Spears’s Mmm Papi, from her 2008 Circus album.
Today, Walter’s a sought-after music producer and songwriter who’s had a hand in some of the biggest songs of the past decade and a half, including Katy Perry’s Roar, Miley Cyrus’s Wrecking Ball and The Weeknd’s Starboy.
While Walter’s previously been Grammy nominated, he’s up for seven at the Feb. 1, 2026, awards ceremony, trailing only rapper Kendrick Lamar, who has nine nominations.
“I love making music,” said Walter. “I love the process of making music, no matter what, so all of this is just the cherry on top.”
Halifax roots
But in the early 2000s, Walter was a teenager attending Armbrae Academy and later St. Patrick’s High School in Halifax trying to find his musical footing.
“Halifax people and the [music] scene had a big effect on me, for sure,” Walter told CBC News from a recording studio in Los Angeles.
Online sources often peg Walter as being born in Halifax, but he was in fact born in Ottawa and mostly lived in Montreal, before moving to Halifax, he said.
In Halifax, Walter learned about scratching from artists such as Skratch Bastid, who is an internationally-known DJ today.
Walter used to hang out at Revolution Records on Prince Street in Halifax, which is where Skratch Bastid (Paul Murphy) used to work. When not serving customers, Murphy could be found spinning records on the turntables — and Walter would watch him.
“I guess you never do know who’s watching, so as an artist, put your all into what you do and be yourself,” said Murphy from Toronto, where he now lives. “And just that might be enough for someone else to be inspired and take their career and life to higher heights.”
Walter also credits DJ IV (Brian Pelrine), a mainstay of Halifax’s hip hop scene for the past two and a half decades, as having a big influence on him.
Pelrine said he met Walter through a neighbour (the musician Patrock), who was a classmate of Walter’s. Knowing that Pelrine was a DJ, the pair came over to Pelrine’s house. Pelrine knew immediately that the humble Walter had talent.
“The first time I met him, I was just like, ‘Wow, this kid’s really nice with it. Like, he’s very, very talented,’ and he was a savant back then,” said Pelrine.
The three ended up hosting a weekly internet radio show together called RTN (Rebel Tactics Network), along with a fourth friend, Bert Knockwood.
The four would gather on Sundays at a store on Sackville Street, set up four turntables and take turns scratching. What one person would play, the next person would respond to, which Pelrine referred to as a question and answer. The sessions would last five to six hours, said Pelrine.
Making beats
At the same time, Walter was also trying to create beats. He didn’t have any formal training and was trying to learn through trial and error and watching other people.
“I was taking records and I was chopping it up, and I was trying to form them together into some semblance of a musical-like composition,” he said.
Walter could usually be found with headphones listening to music, trying to deconstruct how songs and sounds were made. He said his understanding was rudimentary.
Pelrine said that people in the local hip hop community still talk about how they missed out on using beats created by Walter.
Murphy described Walter as a bit quiet, but not shy.
“He just had a good smile about him and he sort of let his work speak for himself in some ways,” said Murphy.
A move to Toronto
In 2004, Walter moved to Toronto to attend an audio engineering school. Walter continued crossing paths there with Murphy, who said Walter’s work continued to get better and better.
Walter was later in an electro rap group, Let’s Go To War, where he was the DJ. The group put out an album in 2009.
Pelrine remembers seeing the group’s videos and feeling proud.
“Henry’s doing it! Like, he’s doing his thing … he was really pursuing his dream,” said Pelrine, who still keeps in contact with Walter.
Walter realized he didn’t want to be a performer and tour.
“But it was a big learning thing for me, just kind of learning about that side of the business and, you know, kind of producing an album,” said Walter.
“I look back on that and I’m like, ‘Man, I really didn’t know what I was doing.’ But there was some cool [things], there was a nugget, there was something there. I can look back and be like, ‘OK, I can see what I was trying to do.'”
Walter said at times he wondered if music was a career for him. He said he worked in call centres at times to help make ends meet, but he was determined to make it work.
“I’ve always just sort of had this belief in myself that it was going to work out,” he said.
While the work on the Britney Spears song helped open doors for him, Walter knew it was just the beginning.
WATCH | Britney Spears’s Mmm Papi:
“I liked that song and it was fun for the time, but I was also like, I know I have way more in me than this,” he said.
In 2012, Walter moved to Los Angeles and from there, he’s accumulated credits on songs by music’s biggest stars.
Pelrine said he sometimes goes to the discography page on Walter’s Wikipedia page and looks at these credits.
“Every single hit that I like that was on the radio was made by him,” said Pelrine. “It’s crazy that it’s come to the point where he’s got the second-most Grammy nominations [this year].”
Some of Walter’s nominations this year are for Producer Of The Year, Non-Classical, for his work as a producer, Album of the Year for Lady Gaga’s Mayhem and Song of the Year for Lady Gaga’s Abracadabra.
WATCH | Lady Gaga’s Abracadabra:
The opportunity to work on the Lady Gaga album came through producer Andrew Watt, who is friends with Walter.
The pair had previously worked on a Spears-Elton John collaboration and had long been discussing “our next big thing,” which turned out to be the Lady Gaga album, said Walter.
“She’s an incredible artist,” said Walter. “I had always wanted to work with her. And, you know, she’s become just a friend and a close collaborator. I’m so grateful and so blessed to have become a part of her world. It’s so cool.”
Abracadabra
Walter’s fingerprints can especially be felt on the song Abracadabra. One day in the studio on a break, Walter decided to play the music for an unrelated track he was working on.
“She was like, ‘What is that? That’s crazy.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, it’s just this random beat thing I made.’ And she got really excited about it.”
That spontaneous moment ended up becoming the basis of the post-chorus part of the song.
In the studio, Walter describes his approach as laid back. Sometimes, he’s massaging a song, while at other times, he is taking more of a leadership approach.
“Everyone should always feel like they have the ability to throw out any idea and not be, like, ridiculed for it, you know, like it’s a safe space to create and kind of do whatever, collaborate,” said Walter.
Walter still keeps in touch with Murphy, who is proud of Walter’s success.
“It just couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” said Murphy. “He’s just a really, really sweet individual and hard-working individual. And I’m not surprised that things ended up like this.”
Walter said he thinks a lot about his time in Halifax and where he’s ended up. Even he can’t believe it.
“I’m like, wow, Lady Gaga is sitting right there and she just liked my beat that I just played and we’re making a whole album,” said Walter.
“Like, what is my life?”
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