I ask cuz I been trying to work with numerous mc's without much success.
Both local and one on this forum.
Seems like most people don't work as hard as I do sometimes.
I have had a person on this forum ask for beats and I went out got sum records and a few days later I had like 7 beats for him to chose....he wanted them all so I sent them to him...mp3...and he kept asking for the wav. Anyways he never got back to me with the beats...fuck'em

And a Chicago mc i gave him a real raw beat, he was feelin it and rapped over it in a day or two and sent me the vocals to mix...goin good but when I sent him the finished project I asked if he could spit the chorus one more time , shit wasn't tight...never got back to me..

So I have a few local guys approach me for a collaboration after my last beat tape and Im down just wanted to get ur guys insight on how u do things.... Thanks...

it's tough, man.
but usually in person you can just kinda gauge their energy about shit.
there's a classic thing that happens around here when someone's had a few drinks and they're like
"yo, we should start a band" or
"yo, we should jam sometime"
"yo, we should make a record together"
good idea at the time, but when it's time to get to work...

however, when someone's talking about the details of a project they wanna do, then they're thinking about the work involved and chances are they're down for the grind.

so i guess just try to see where they're at with the "work" part of it.

For me it's just been luck. Knowing someone that knows someone. Some guy from portugal just asked today if he could use some of my stuff on soundcloud.

I stopped working with artist once I left RR. I just license my music these days.

Less Bs
I keep my rights
the money is way better
less headache

Before though when i was working with artist it was rough before I was not just supplying beats I was actually producing projects. Then I said fuck it why do all this work only for the artist to

Die
go to jail
flop
get lazy

etc


So I just leased tracks to artist... I could care less what they did with the tracks

Sit on it
create
do nothing

whatever it didn't matter I already got my fee for the license.

I'd study my market I knew which camps and artist loved

Dilla Beats
Mobb Deep Beats

Dre beats
etc
etc

So I took small groups of tracks to each. When I make tracks I have a folder with the genre and artist that I hear of it so I'd just take 4-6 from each put it on my ipod and play tracks in the lab

Easiest 4 figures a month I've every made. But that got to be time consuming and people start asking for custom tracks... Well that was good and bad

Good: - I couple up the price a lot
Bad: - It became a marriage seriously... Artist would give me this "can you make it more grimey?"... what? What do you mean by grimey because I'm sure our definitions are completely different. Some people consider waynes beats to be grimey some people think akons tracks are grimey. Turned out dude wanted just wanted the sounds more lofi.. Which didn't make it sound grimey at all but hey it is what it is

Or Someone would go make the track don't hit hard enough ... so i'm like what doesn't hit hard? .. the kick... the what? So after 40 minutes fishing info out of the artist. I'm just send me a track you think is grimey.. Dude played some old Madlib track which was more neo soul than anything


but you are stuck with that artist until you get it the way they want and a lot of times it can go back and forth for a good month. So i edit my contract requiring 50% upfront the rest when we finish. I found those artist were more detailed and knew exactly what they wanted and lastly easier to work with.

1 thing you should never do and you probably heard this before is working for free. I'm not saying charge your guys $1000 a track but hell your energy bill aint free, your roof over the studio or place of creation aint free.

This way if the shit falls through atleast you have a few hundred to sit on.. keep it moving

I've never collaborated with vocalists (I want to though) but I've collaborated with other beat maestros and for the most part, it's always worked out. Someone has a small loop to start with, other person adds to it sends it back, that person adds to it, sends it back and at some point, both will agree the track feels complete.


This happens both in person and over the internets..sometimes, it takes a little longer than you'd like if person you're working with has a busy schedule, but that's the only thing I've ever noticed.

im with hseiken.

On this collab i did afew months back

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=10643

we pretty much just both send eachother drum loops, then added a layer of chops, or bass. whatever. We just kept sending em back and fourth until the tracks were filled up the way we found acceptable.

Never worked with a rapper before though. I send out a few requests to get people on beats. had a few say yes but then no follow up messages.

i was personally very lucky to collabs with Kel and Ill Green without any sort of problems. recently a french combo contacted me to collabs. and also a cool head from this forum wich name is.