If you aspire to produce for the CHH giants then you’ll have to rub shoulders with the right people. When I say rub shoulders, in part, I mean give dope beats to the right artists for free. Market conditions have rendered you virtually powerless when you send your beats to that artist. I recently sat down with Beanz of the Houston based production team “Beanz & Cornbread (Mac Miller, Slim Thug, Paul Wall)” and he made a very true statement. He told me that most producers make hot music. Hot music is at an all time high and extremely easy to get and it’s cheap! This is why you feel so powerless in negotiations with artists. Producers are forced to become hopefuls in a large pool of producers vying for an artist’s attention. We hope that out of the dozens of beats that made it into an artist’s inbox he hears something he likes in yours and wants to record to it. Just getting to this point has taken months and even years of sacrificing great material for some producers.
You wait and wait and wait some more until that artist tells you “I’ve recorded a dope song to your track”. The joy wells up inside your heart because this is why you started producing in the first place: to make great music with the best artists. However, years of sacrificing great material to get to this point has left you struggling to make ends meet for your business and having very little to show your spouse or family why you put in so much time and effort into something that doesn’t give you what you put into it.
What I’ve just described is happening to hundreds of producers everyday. Which brings me to the heart of the post. I’ve come to find that the game is the game and its not going to change anytime soon. So what should we do? Ask yourself: Who is the next Lecrae? Think about it, sometime around the early 2000’s or late 90’s some random dude was doing all he could to get beats from local and well-known producers so he could record his raps. Some producers were probably working with bigger named artists and didn’t have time for the no-name Christian rapper. However, there was a producer like you that heard potential and invested time and beats into the young dude. This young dude kept rapping and eventually got signed to Cross Movement Records and went on to start his own record label that became the most profitable CHH record label of all time. Guess which producers benefited the most from this scenario? Guess who doesn’t have to submit beats by email hoping the lil’ rapper dude likes them? Guess who doesn’t have to work for free anymore? You think those producers who Crae’ grew up with are starving? One word… royalties.
I believe there are a lot of extremely talented artists who go unnoticed and are underserved by great producers because we’re too busy chasing a dream or trying to break into inner circles that can’t be broken into. The next great CHH artist is out there. He’s emailing you with a sob story about not having money for beats. He’s that random rapper that sent you his music just begging you to work with him but you never opened the email. Have you turned your back on the next Tedashii? The T.R.U.T.H? I’ve had many triumphs in my two years in CHH. I’ve worked with Reach Records artists and CMR artists and I’m in no way saying that I don’t want to work with established artists. However, I believe it’s wise to invest more energy and resources into finding and developing the next fan favorite.
I’ll give you a great example of this: Back when I was first starting to produce I was an Indiana University Alumni still hanging around campus. I happened to be at a sorority scholarship pageant one night. During the intermission some lil’ dude got on stage and spit a dope poem. He didn’t recite it like most others would during the time; he had a cadence that was different. I thought to myself, if he recited that poem to a beat it would be amazing. I approached the young poet after the program and introduced myself. We exchanged numbers and eventually got together.
He was a poet by nature but he could rap too. However, I noticed that he didn’t rap like other rappers. He had an interesting command of time and his delivery was smooth and effortless. After hearing him rap I immediately knew he was different. Special even. I played music for him and he loved it. It fit him like an expensive pair of shoes. My music gave him a freedom to express his self like never before. After recording a few songs we both realized that what we had was special and that it should be developed. Now, lil’ homie was a poet so it took some time to get him to write songs in 16 bar verses and 8 bar hooks but he got it quickly and hasn’t looked back since.
Lil homie got saved and so did I. He then joined this campus organization that used music to evangelize to other college students called the Impact Movement. Every year the Impact Movement would put talented singers and emcees together and they would travel to schools around the country witnessing the Gospel and performing. Well, the response from the group they put together from that year was so overwhelming that the Impact Movement decided to forego putting another group together and kept them for a second year. This group consisted of another dope emcee, three female vocalists and a female DJ.
Unbeknownst to myself, the group was performing around the country to beats that I had given the poet. He was writing some of their songs and many of them included music that I had done for him. I would send him beats and the ones he didn’t want he would give to the other emcee in the group. This other emcee wrote a song to one of my beats that became a staple in all of their shows. As fate would have it, the organizer of the group had ties with John Wells (CEO of CMR) and told him about this unlikely group of rappers and singers and what they were doing around the country. John checked them out and liked what he saw. When this group began to record for CMR they recorded songs they had performed in their shows, some of which, I had produced.
That song that the other emcee was using in all of their shows became the first single on their first album. Some of you may have figured it out by now but the group I’m referring to is Level 3:16 and the lil poet is StvG. What started out as two people investing in each other turned out to be my first major placement and the beginning of a relationship with CMR. I’m now working with them on their upcoming album, in an even greater capacity, due to be released this year. Also, as you can imagine, StvG and I have a great relationship that has turned into a friendship over the years. This is just one example of how investing in an aspiring artist can lead to great things for you as a producer.
I understand that this post is not for every producer. There are many of you that have it set in your mind that you will be the next in house producer for Reach records, and you might! However, many of you wont be. I believe it’s important to have a dream and to allow that dream to drive you. However, you have to decide how long you will chase that dream before you realize there may be a better way to achieve your goals. In the last two years I’ve been blessed to meet a handful of extremely talented artists that love my music and respect me for what I bring as a producer. I find that great music comes from these types of relationships. These are the artists I plan to invest in. When the next Lecrae breaks I want to be the producer that breaks him. Don’t you?
tracks@jimmynatural.com
