You shouldn’t listen to me.
That’s how my LinkedIn bio begins. Why?
“There are many more qualified people than me. But few admit it as I did. So maybe I'm worth connecting with?” And I believe that.
While I’ve searched and gather much marketing wisdom, I don’t have all the answers. I’m a generalist at heart, which makes me appreciate specialized knowledge and respect other’s competence circles.
It’s why I’ve coined myself the Marketing Journalist.
I’m skilled at finding information (through conversations, reading, research) and then sharing that with a tint of contrarian perspective. But before I get ahead of myself, let me go to the start.
I was 18 and I thought I was going to be the next Metro Boomin.
For those who don’t know, Metro Boomin is a hip-hop producer who, along with Murda Beatz, Sony Digital and Southside, made the producer an idolized position. Rather than becoming a rapper, you can create the beats for the rappers.
Or like many great artists (Eminem, Ye), they produce and rap.
To start my journey, as you’re doing here, I dug into music fundamentals. I learned music theory and how to create chords. I watched hours of content on creating beats and connected with our producers.
Then I started making beats.
Spending 2 hours producing daily while getting my Digital Media Technology associate degree from a technical college. Once I was competent enough, my goal was to produce a beat every day.
It took me about 1.5 years to get to this point.
After spending another year making daily beats, I began “marketing” them. The goal was for artists to hear my beats and then buy them. Hopefully starting a working relationship.
The challenge: How do I get their attention?
While I didn’t frame the problem as that, I realized that many other producers were not getting attention. They would post their beats daily without much reaction.
I’ll admit, that’s where I started too.
I was posting my daily beats and hoping to get some traction. After months of this, I had little momentum. Then it hit me:
I love music (obviously). Why don’t I create a content series around music but with a tilt toward producers. This landed on a unique show where I would review new albums. But only focus on the producers for each track.