by Patrick Mazara

My name is Patrick Mazara, professionally known as Zara616 and I am a producer from Grand Rapids known for my work with well-established artist such as Skilla Baby, Baby Smoove, Jdot Breezy, Baby Money, YN Jay and more. I’ve always been big on growth and I love to see people, especially producers, thriving so I wanted to take the time to drop some free game on how in a year I built my name and began solidifying my spot in the producer game with “The Grease Guide.”

the grease guide:

step 1: BRAND

Understand that you are your brand. Your producer tag is crucial, especially when starting because it can direct people towards more of your work. When it does, you should make sure your social media accounts reflect you as a producer to maintain their interest. I went about growing mine by providing my audience with authentic content of video edits to my beats that would keep their interest and later on I allowed people to put a face to the name by also posting myself. To continue to build your brand, my advice is to also invest in meeting artists in-person, advertise yourself and your beats and finally, stay consistent.

step 2: publishing and beat store

Get your publishing together by creating a BMI or an ASCAP so that when the bigger placements do come, you’re eligible to sign the paper work. If you make music you can still register your music so it works if you also rap/sing. Do keep in mind that publishing and royalties are not the same thing. If you produce for artist that are signed to a major label, make sure you should be getting an advance, net artist royalties and publishing. Do not sign a bad deal but do not be ungrateful especially if the terms you’ve signed and advance being given is something you do not have. That especially goes for loop-makers. Lastly, look into creating a beat store such as Airbit and Beatstars so that you’re audience can both listen to and purchase your beats.

step 3: networking

Networking is one of the most crucial steps! Your skill will only get you so far and if you have no way of having it heard, you won’t get any placements. So network with producers, work with the smaller artist in a camp and soon the bigger artist will want to work with you because they hear what you’ve provided for their mans.

step 4: be geniune

Stay genuine. When you’re so hungry for success, you tend to just jump the gun. But staying genuine and realizing people are still human is one of the best things you can do. I personally get tired of people trying to work before even forming a connection, I know engineers feel the same because people attempt to use them for placements, yet don’t even form any kind of bond first. Have a respectful approach, don’t blow them up, but show you genuinely admire their craft or love their artists’ sound and your time to work with them will come.

step 5: patience

Understand that your time will come. Do not be envious of another producer getting back-to-back placements because they worked just as hard if not harder to get to where they are. Take your time and develop your own sound. I recommend making a single drum kit with all of your favorite sounds and only using that one. In a few months you should be able to play your beats and tell that every beat has some type of similarity that people can recognize and say you produced it.

step 6: business

Do not take things personal. You have to understand these people do not know you. They aren’t obligated to respond back or rap to your beats. If you blow up and rappers you wanted to work with finally hit you back, do it! You’ll miss out on the opportunity if you decide to be petty because if they came to you, they’re more likely to take you serious.

step 7: consistency

Work hard and be consistent. If it was easy, everybody would do it. As long as you’re constantly sending beats out and working with producers, your chance of a placement will only keep increasing so stop just sitting on beats. Send the same ones out until they get placed, have some versatility so you aren’t confided in a box. Invest in going to studios or even running ads on your posts because you never know who could see it.

step 8: manifestation

Manifestation has gotten me a long way and can be a very in depth topic. My advice is to believe yourself and be grateful as if you’ve already accomplished what it is you want to accomplish down the line. We constantly tell ourselves negative things and that’s the reason why it happens but if we flip that around and speak positive affirmations, only speak good things would the good not come to be? I always tell my peers to be grateful, and that even if it isn’t something you have just yet, believe you have it. By having that energy of gratefulness you increase your frequencies and that allows your manifestation to find its way into your life and when it does you can truly be grateful.

Overall, there’s a lot that comes with being a producer and how far you make it honestly just reflects your determination. No matter what just keep it going. Especially when you don’t feel like it because that’s when the placements and opportunities appear. Stay genuine, be authentic, make sure you create what you want to and not what others want, prioritize your mental health, and just be appreciative of everything, even if it’s just a like on a beat you put on YouTube, appreciate it.

Zara616 is a hip-hop producer. Follow him on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.

Thanks for reading! Make sure to follow us on Instagram to stay up-to-date on everything hip-hop.