Rising star Mike WiLL Made It has opened up about collaborator Miley Cyrus and spoke out in defense of her rapping skills.

The former Disney beauty features on a new track of his called '23' and he told Hot New Hip Hop that she surprised him in the studio with her ability to adapt to urban music so easily:

"We did that at the same time we did “We Can’t Stop.” I think we did it the same day. I let her hear it and she said, "I can pull that off." I said, "Yeah right" and she said, "I can, for real." She went and knocked it out. She’s just a fan of urban culture."

"She comes from the country culture and pop culture so she knows that, so she’s a fan of the urban culture in the way that I am from the urban culture and am from the hood and am a fan of the pop world."

Referring to the controversy surrounding Cyrus at the moment, he added: "I look at her like how I do music. She is a fan of all music, just like I am. A lot of times, older people don’t get the new generation. The new generation will listen to a pop song, a hard ass hood song, and come back and listen to another pop song. '23' is a representation of that and for those people."

"The fact that anybody would say anything to her about rapping, the only reason they would say that is because she’s white. And I never knew you had to be black, white, Asian, or whatever to rap, I thought you had to just be talented."