Beat The Block

This show is all about turning lemons into lemonade, taking a bad situation and flipping it so it works for you. Few have done this better than our next guest, Chi Town’s own Vic Spencer. In middle school Vic entered the group home system and when his schedule was restricted so he couldn’t play basketball anymore, he picked up the pen. The staff running the group homes took notice and decided to sponsor Vic to make music and tour other group homes, foster care events and the like sharing his positive message of turning a bad situation into a great one.

Fast forward years after that and after dropping many mixtapes he dropped the critical acclaimed “Cost of Victory” in 2015 which had the biggest buzz of any of his work to date. Despite being older than most of his contemporaries, he was not only able to make it in music but make it with his sound which is very different to his peers, but true to him. He also shared some inspiring and hilarious stories about meeting Sean Price and getting to work with someone he looked up to as well as eating weed brownies with Heltah Skeltah.

Listen to these stories and more on this episode of Beat The Block, powered by BeatStars. If you’re a producer trying to make a living doing what you love, head over to BeatStars.com and start making money, for free.

There was a time not too long ago where people weren’t checking for Buffalo when it came to hip hop. Still, our next guest DJ Shay was grinding his way through and is the man that is responsible for helping put it on the map.

He started DJ’ing when he was just 10 years old and played gigs all throughout his childhood. After he came of age he started making beats as well and dove into that world along with DJ’ing. Eventually, he founded Buff City Records and became in every aspect of the music business from signing artists, managing doing shows, etc. During that time he got introduced to a young and hungry Benny The Butcher and started working with him. After he saw how talented he was he decided to go all in on helping him (and eventually Conway and Westside Gunn) and do whatever he could do to help them in their career.

Listen to these stories and more on this episode of Beat The Block, powered by BeatStars. If you’re a producer trying to make a living doing what you love, head over to BeatStars.com and start making money, for free.

Decap cut his teeth in the rap game joining a 9-person rap group, he was the only producer and had a make the beats for all their tracks. That was in junior high, by the time he got to his school he had built some buzz for himself and started selling beats. He eventually left to make it in New York but ended up hitting a wall and getting into debt, he decided to study spirituality and meditation instead. That cleared his mind and helped him become conscious of what he really wanted and he entered the music industry a changed man.

He quit chasing major placements and began to diversify his efforts and knowledge launching things like his production masterclasses and infamous drum kit, “Drums That Knock”. He also share how he has dealt with depression, books that changed his life and even how Redman randomly walked into his apartment to use the bathroom.

Listen to these stories and more on this episode of Beat The Block, powered by BeatStars. If you’re a producer trying to make a living doing what you love, head over to BeatStars.com and start making money, for free.

Creating a beat with a sample can be hard enough, today’s guest would recreate samples from scratch ever since he started making music. Our guest this episode, Antman Wonder, hails from Philly and when he started making beats he didn’t even realize sampling existed so he would remake them from scratch which built his beat making chops quickly.

He caught a big break after being interviewed by DJ Premier from a project called “An Ode to Reasonable Doubt”, he started working with Premier and Royce Da 5’9 among others. He also started composing and shared how the music industry should pay producers their worth and on time like they do in film. Despite achieving more success like a Grammy with Anderson.Paak, he remains fulfilled by the process of making good music, working with people he loves and focusing on legacy. Even with his success, Antman shared a mental breakdown he had in 2017 and not only how he was able to get out of it but how you can too.

Listen to these stories and more on this episode of Beat The Block, powered by BeatStars. If you’re a producer trying to make a living doing what you love, head over to BeatStars.com and start making money, for free.

When Charity entered her first beat battle ever she made an ultimatum, if I don’t do well in this beat battle I won’t pursue music as a career. Thankfully, she got 3rd place and that gave her the confidence to keep going. She started producing more around Houston (her hometown) and worked closely with people like Nate Coupe to develop her sound and brand. She eventually founded her own production company, GOD LVL to continue building her career in music.

She kept networking and listening to feedback from producers like Focus to keep improving. She eventually was able to get placements with Cyhi The Prince, Big Krit and shares the story of meeting Dre and working in the studio with him. Not to mention the time where she worked with Aftermath artist, Candice Pillay, and the beats were so hot Candice’s hair literally caught on fire!

Listen to these stories and more on this episode of Beat The Block, powered by BeatStars. If you’re a producer trying to make a living doing what you love, head over to BeatStars.com and start making money, for free.

In today’s world, we producers often have many creative skills they learn that helps fulfill them and pay the bills. That is definitely the case for our next guest, Billy Martin who is a guitarist and keyboardist for the punk rock band, “Good Charlotte”. He shared his journey joining “Good Charlotte” as a senior in High School then having the commercial success of a platinum record a few years after Billy joined. He eventually decided to get back into another love of his, illustration, and despite having the brand behind him he did have to work really hard on his skills to compete with those who had been doing it as a career. He shares that being focused and disciplined with his work, schedule and making sure he was always learning helped him achieve success in music and illustration. He also eventually started making beats for artists and on BeatStars, once again despite having a name in the industry he ran into all kinds of problems including an artist never paying him for an entire album he produced.

Listen to these stories and more on this episode of Beat The Block, powered by BeatStars. If you’re a producer trying to make a living doing what you love, head over to BeatStars.com and start making money, for free.

Please find ways to support here: blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/

In light of the tragic murder of George Floyd we wanted to have an open discussion on the podcast about what we can do to help and how we can heal ourselves and help others heal around us. To help us do that we had Christopher Scott, M.S.W., C.S.W.A. (aka Hip Hop Social Worker) on the show. Chris shared about his work in Portland as a social worker, working with youth and how he is growing his brand as Hip Hop Social worker to make content for everyone to consume for free (including the Hip Hop Social Worker Podcast).

As hard as it is, we had the conversation to try and see what we can do and how we can heal. On what we can do; voting for legislation against police brutality, checking in and supporting our black friends, showing up and listening to what we can do.

On healing from this tragedy, Chris mentioned allowing yourself to take time off, talk to your boss and lean on your support network. Being creative not just in making music but drawing, journaling, writing and even coloring! Taking time to learn new skills and being able to give your self time to focus on other things. Most importantly, set aside time to log off of social media, meditate, center yourself and recharge so you can come back to help with a clear mind.

Listen to these stories and more on this episode of Beat The Block, powered by BeatStars. If you’re a producer trying to make a living doing what you love, head over to BeatStars.com and start making money, for free.

Every producer has to make this decision, do I go all in or keep doing it making music on the side? Our next guest’s decision ultimately led to his placement with Kanye West. Today’s guest, Cameone, was forced to make that decision after he got fired from his job at a sneaker store and had to decide if he should get a full-time job or go full time into his own work. He decided to bet on himself.

Making music isn’t his only passion, he’s also a designer. He shares his story doing little logo projects to a branding deal that paid his rent and then some. He also discovered he could make samples with his unique synth-style he loves and make money that way. That ended up earning him a credit for “On God” from “Jesus is King” by Kanye West.

Listen to these stories and more on this episode of Beat The Block, powered by BeatStars. If you’re a producer trying to make a living doing what you love, head over to BeatStars.com and start making money, for free.

Not every producer finds success and creative fulfillment after they decide to give up on making it in the music industry. Our next guest, MTK, did. MTK started making beats during a graveyard shift then while he traveled around Europe, his big break came at a Seattle beat battle where he met Macklemore, Eric G, Jake One, and others. While he definitely had success, he wasn’t where he hoped to be after a discussion with his wife decided to leave the music business.

After that, he just started making music for fun again and he started making compositions that he loved creating the most. He started messaging people like Statik Selektah and soon enough he was getting credits with people like Royce Da’ 5’9, Boi1da, Logic, !llmind, Trippie Red.

Listen to these stories and more on this episode of Beat The Block, powered by BeatStars. If you’re a producer trying to make a living doing what you love, head over to BeatStars.com and start making money, for free.

Mr.Porter grew up in a musical family, his grandfather was in “The Original 5 Blind Boys of Alabama” and his father who started off as their driver and Popular gospel singer himself, he spent much of his childhood on the road and surrounded by music. His life changed when at the age of 15 he was shot in his hometown of Detriot and wasn’t able to pursue sports the way he was before. He later turned to producing and after only 3 months he linked up with Eminem and helped produce his first album, Infinite.

Mr.Porter shares how later he started composing for films and executive producing albums like “Hell: The Sequel”. Even as he grew as an artist he still faced hardships and obstacles he had to overcome. There was a dark time for him after Proof of D12 died and where Denaun was diagnosed with a heart condition. He started focusing on his physical and mental health with things like therapy, meditation and exercise which he talks about in-depth, he’s currently working on a pamphlet for producers around health in the studio.

He also dives into the business side of things, detailing his leaving EMI and what he’s seeing artists should be doing in today’s world of streaming and how to command their worth. Even touching on the legendary queen’s Jill Scott and Erykah Badu Instagram Live. His focus now is to stay centered mentally, physically and spiritually and help others achieve their dreams in the music world, as well as his new solo project he describes as “a hip-hop version of ‘What’s Going On’”.

Listen to these stories and more on this episode of Beat The Block, powered by BeatStars. If you’re a producer trying to make a living doing what you love, head over to BeatStars.com and start making money, for free.

We're thrilled to announce the Beat The Block Podcast! This is a show where we go way deeper than the surface and talk to the best producers and artists in the game about not just their success but the dark times and how they bounced back (so you can too).

Since we are making this for the Beatstars community we wanted to include you in the process! You have the chance to have your beat featured on the show, to enter submit at beatstars.world/btbcontest by April 29th to enter.