MAKE BEATS FOR RAP

Just throwing a few beats online and thinking artist will flock to buy is not enough. If you really want to make the big money (6 figures a year or more) you have to understand thoroughly marketing and promotion. You have to understand why people buy and most of all how to drive targeted traffic.

The problem most producers have is they don't where to start to sell beats online. Well you have a few choices.

1. You could purchase domain and hosting for cheap and have a web designer make you a music webpage to sell your beats.

2. You could use 3rd party arbitrage sites that allow producers to upload their beats so artist can purchase and download instantly.

3. Put your music on huge communities like myspace and soundclick and let artist contact you to purchase beats.

All of these methods can result in a good amount of money if done right.

It is a good idea to do all of those methods to make as much money as possible.

You have to treat this like a business and not like a hustle. Your in the business of selling music, and your beats are the product. Your customers are music artist (mostly up and coming) looking for affordable beats to record their tracks to.

Rome wasn't built in a day, so it will take time and dedication to start making the big bucks when you start to sell beats online. It is hard work, but worth it in the long run.

It is also a good idea to have at least 50 hot beats already made and ready to be sold. 50 is a good amount because it gives the artist a few beats to choose from.

Remember to work on your business everyday and I guarantee you will be successful.

Because the US military occupied Panama for so long, we have way more chain restaurants than most countries in Central America. We have Quizno's, Burger King, and my personal favorite, Wendy's where I can continue my ongoing french-fry study as to whether or not there really is a difference between the medium and biggie portions. Most of these fast-food joints will deliver to your house, via small noisy motorbikes. You would think this kind of service would nourish the country's lazy, couch potato demographic but Panamanians, for the most part, are not fat.

Mistake: Arriving in Panama in September without a rain jacket. The weather here is hard to complain about though: about 80 year-round. The rainy season lasts a good five months, during which you can expect a torrential downpour every few days. It's during this season that I've come to experience new levels of rain, new intensities of rain that before I never knew existed. Just yesterday, for example, it was raining so hard that this gushing rivulet of rainwater lifted some kid's play truck--the kind with an orange body and yellow roof--and drifted it all the way down to Via Argentina.

During rain storms, I come up with lyrics. If you weren't aware, I am a bit of a underground rap artist, and sometimes, I like to use my articles as marketing vehicles for this talent. Here are a few lines I threw together about Panama:
"Yeah I like to go out to beaches
Las Palmas, you know.
Cheaters envy if I want to get grimey wit' it down in Coronado
Coral Lodge in San Blas
And when I get there, I just sit back and chill."
The safety standard here is pretty high, though it is the occasional murder or robbery that simply reminds me of that all-too-cliché theme of 'living in the third world'. I've been robbed and really, it's not all that bad: In fact, I say if you can't beat em, join em. To a lot of people, living in a big city with petty crime is a bad thing, but to me there could be no better place to practice some stealing of my own. I mostly do pick pocketing and I dabble in dog-napping. In the hierarchy of criminals, pickpockets like me are like at the bottom, one above mailbox burglars and the guys who steal pies from windowsills.

In all seriousness though, the cops are pretty friendly and good to expats like myself. It is a city though, and with city life you get crime. Nothing is too extreme, and to give you an idea, we feel more comfortable here than we do in Washington D.C. Costa Rica has gotten a shameful rap for prostitution and some of that applies to Panama too. Lots of men explore that sphere and though they'll never tell their partner, a fair amount cheat on their spouses. This is kinda like asking a mime who his favorite performer is: you know he has one, but he'll never tell you their name.

There's an old saying that goes something like this: give a man a fish, he eats fish for a day. Give a man a fishing pole and he'll catch tuna fish that same day. The fishing down here is really pretty spectacular, rivaling that of Mexico. We have what is considered to be "the best fishing lodge in the world" down in the Darien jungle. We also have what I consider to be the best shortcut in the world--the Panama Canal--which is a little bit more than a tourist trap.

I'm sure there's some way they calculate standard of living and I'm assuming it's on a 100 point scale. If that's the case, I'd give Panama a 94. I love the fact that I can have a beautiful 0 dinner atop a high-rise (the restaurant scene is off the hook) or a mountain of food at a café. I love how I can be in meetings in the city in shiny buildings with snappy dressers, then 2 hours later, be sitting in the San Blas Caribbean archipelago with a 500 year-old tribe of Kunas. I love the infrastructure, which makes it easy to get to secluded beaches and mountainous regions in a breezy afternoon. In my opinion, Panamanians take great pleasure in pretending to be tough. I love the people though because I think they are unique: hard on the outside but caring and sincere in the middle--similar to Junior Mints.

If you're reading this, then you've probably taken the time to read the entire article which I commend you on. I would recommend, however, that you do something more productive with your time: go to night school or something. Oh, and if its your birthday today, happy birthday.

Artists who buy beats online should make sure they buy them form a well trusted beat seller. By finding a producer who you trust to work with you will save yourself thousands of dollars and more legal headaches than you can possibly imagine. For this reason alone I say DO YOUR RESEARCH!

There's nothing wrong with shopping around and finding the right producer and beat to use on your project. The internet has made this easier and more affordable than ever before. Now you can record an album, from the comfort of your own house, usually for less than a thousand dollars including software, equipment, and production costs. If you do not want to purchase your own equipment there are literally thousands of local studios that have trained sound engineers scattered all over the country, so there's a pretty good chance you'll be able to find one in your area.

Artists who want to record a great song need to be choosy when buying rap beats that are just right for their song. You can refer to one of my other articles if you want more in depth advice on this matter. There are literally millions of beats online to choose from, so take your time and choose several hundred that you connect with. Then go and short list them into an album after listening to them for a week or two to see what sticks with you.

Finding the right instrumental for your next classic may take a lot of digging. Producers who upload beats online usually have a large catalog to pick from, so make sure to listen to the whole thing before moving onto the next person in line. You don't want to miss a gem just because it's hidden amongst all the clutter of sites like SoundClick, MyFlashStore, and RocBattle. Make sure to put a lot of thought into selecting the right tracks before buying beats online.

Before paying for beats make sure you know which ones you want. Most producers have a no refund policy after the purchase is completed, so make sure you are happy with the selection you've made. You do not want to buy a beat that you don't wind up using on your album because it doesn't hold your attention after a couple days.

Before purchasing anything, do some legwork and research the company you are going to. Find out how your beat will be sent to you. Some producers have automated beat stores that send out tracks as soon as they are purchased, some people still prefer to use PayPal buttons and send the tracks out manually to add a human element to their business. Make sure you know in advance how you will receive your track before paying for the rights to use it. If you are pressed for time you may want to go to a producer with an automated system or 24-48 hour guarantee on delivery. Nobody wants to have studio time booked and no beat to work with when they get there.

After the album is recorded there is a wide variety of graphic designers and artists who can make your project have the shelf appeal of a major record label release for very reasonable prices. Between this and sites like iTunes, ReverbNation, and CD Baby which offer artists a way to get their CDs out to the public with little to no upfront cost you no longer need a deal to have a good distribution network set up to get your music into the hands of your fans.