Every passionate beat maker has a pipe dream of being able to make hip hop beats for a living. While this is thinking big, it is not as simple as that. There are a few steps you have to follow before you can make hip hop beats for a living.

Perfect Your Instrumentals

You can never really make hip hop beats for a living if you are amateurish and without the necessary experience expected of a good quality producer. If you are going to make hip hop beats for profit purposes then they had better be worth the price tag you will attach to them. So take time to perfect your skills before trying to make money. The only way to perfect your skills is by staying in the studio all day long. You must eat music, sleep over music and live for music. This will ensure that your skills develop quickly. You can even go online for expert tips on making certain types of music as variety will be a necessity once you are established as a musician. Having a mentor is also a good way to stay positively inspired if you wish to make hip hop beats for a living one day.

Distribute For Free


When you are still starting out as a beat maker, you can only grow in confidence when people listen to your beats and like them. And there is no better way to do so than by giving away your beats for free. However, this will require you to broaden your social networks so that you get to know rappers who would actually be able to listen to your music. Every beat maker experiences a moment of clarity during which he/she realizes that knowing people is very essential, and this does not only apply to musicians alone. Knowing people is as simple as going to public rap contests, shows and performances and getting to know people. Without this you may never make hip hop beat for a living since no one will know you.

Start Targeting Locally Successful Musicians

If you want to know how to make hip hop beats for a living you will surely have to get credit for having made particular beats for certain established musicians. This will add value to your instrumentals and people will start to take you more seriously than when you are still starting off. This is hard, but it is easy at the same time. Invite a few popular outfits in you locality to your home and this is something which should be fairly easy if you have been appearing at public concerts very often. It is here that you can make an impression. And if they agree to use your instrumentals, do not charge them. Simply ask for recognition, for instance, having your name appearing on the next album which features your material.

Start Selling

Once you have built a good reputation as a producer you can then place a price tag on your music and brag to your friends at the local bar that you now make hip hop beats for a living.