Beats: How to pick beats that will help you become a Multi-Platinum, Superstar Artist

In today’s world of music, vocals and lyrics are no longer the primary factor in a song or artist becoming a major success. The beats play an important role in today’s music, especially in the genres of hip-hop, rap, r&b, and pop. Beats are more prevalent today because of advanced technology, combined with the fact that more and more listeners are starting to appreciate the art-form of composing beats.

Beats affect listeners in so many ways. Music has always had the ability to move people, both physically and emotionally, but today’s music seems to affect people even more. This is because there is much more to the beats than the acoustic instruments of the old days; the roots of the instrumental world, such as congos and bongos and harps, and stringed instruments.

In today’s world of beats we have synthesizers and programmed drums and claps that sound a lot different than a typical acoustic drum set or guitar string.

There are many types of beats, even within each genre. We’re going to discuss mainly hip hop beats, rap beats, and r&b instrumentals. Even within these 3 genres of beats, there are multiple categories. For example, there are commercial and underground beats, but then it gets even more in depth. There are categories such as east-coast beats, west-coast beats, dirty south beats, midwest beats, club beats, chopped and screwed beats, and many other styles. These categories don't always only apply to rap beats, but to many other types of instrumentals as well.

Because of the importance of beats in today’s hip-hop, r&b, and pop music, it is also as important for you as an artist to have the right types of beats behind you to help display your talent and get your music heard. But you must have the right types of beats for your songs and your voice, otherwise listeners will have a hard time receiving your songs and you as an artist.

There are many things to look for when picking beats for yourself, but you must be willing to consider what the fans want to hear. The first thing that you should consider when searching for rap beats, hip hop beats, or r&b instrumentals is the buzz factor. The buzz factor of the beat is the beat’s ability to help you generate a good buzz in your area with your music. Buzz is a term used to describe a rumbling or increased growth of noise, that noise being about you as an artist. It is the act of getting people all over to talk about you and tell others about you and your songs.

This is the beginning of growing a large fan-base. The fans are who will ultimately make you a platinum, superstar artists. So getting this buzz going is a key to your success. The right beat will have the ability to help you create this buzz. The beat has to have elements that will inspire you to write a song that will stick in listener’s heads. In some cases, the beat by itself can stick in people’s head, but you want to be remembered as well, so you must let your talent be heard over the beat.

Over the past few years, it has been proven that a terrible song with a hot beat can still stick in listener’s heads, and still achieve platinum status. Just think about some of the songs you may have even heard that you thought were stupid, but because of the hot beat, the song still played in your head over and over again. Now think about how many ‘stupid’ songs you’ve heard and asked yourself, ‘how did that go platinum?”

So what things contribute to giving a beat the ‘buzz factor’ and what makes a beat hot?

Ever since the beginning of music on earth, rhythm has been an integral part of getting things going. Hundreds of years ago, congos and melodic toms have been a basis for which other elements were added onto. But rhythm is more than just percussion and drums, because if you pay attention, you can listen to songs with no drums or percussion, and still nod your head or move your body to the rhythm.

In the old days, this was how it primarily worked. But in today’s music, drums and percussion are very much prevalent in making an audience of listeners move. Today’s platinum beats have hot bumping drums and percussion that shake the room and rumble the speakers. This is what moves the crowd today, so in order to get the buzz factor today, the beats that you use should have similar ingredients. Bangin’ drums beats and percussion are the first of the ingredients in your search for platinum quality beats, whether you are looking for hip hop instrumentals, hip hop instrumentals (yes there can be a difference), or r&b instrumentals.

The next thing you should look for in your search for beats that will help you build the buzz, are tight melodies. Melodies are a key factor in the ‘sticky factor,’ as in making the song stick in your listener’s head, which we discussed earlier. The most memorable songs have choruses that are easy to learn, and they are easy to learn because they have a strong, easy to remember melody.

You want beats and instrumentals that are mixed properly. This will ensure that the levels will come through the speakers good for your listeners, as well as in the club or on the radio. A beat that is professionally mixed and mastered will help you sound like a professional, platinum quality artist once you put your vocals on it. As an independent, up-and coming artist, you may not have thousands of dollars to spend to get the quality beats that you really need. Luckily for you, there are places on the internet where you can get professional quality beats, without spending a lot of money. I will provide a few in the links section of this article, but you can do a google search for: hip hop beats, rap beats, r&b beats, etc.

When searching for beats you should pick a beat or instrumental that adds to your talent, and doesn’t take anything away from it. You want the beat to be hot and help your song stand out, but you still want to be a respected artist as well, so the beat should let your talent shine through, instead of out-shining you. You have probably heard many songs where you say, ‘she/he can’t sing/rap, but that beat is hot!” Although this has still helped artists with no talent go platinum, they didn’t last very long in the industry.

If you want longevity, then you must develop your talent and perfect it daily, and use beats that make you sound as good as you really are, if not better. It is always good to have beats and instrumentals that will take your performance to another level. In my years as a music producer, I have watched many artists grow and develop, and many of them grew as a result of using quality music beats. Sometimes, having the right music beats can make an artist sound better almost overnight!

So let’s say you’ve worked on your talent, and you’ve found the beats that you believe will help you become a multi-platinum artists…now what? Well keep in mind, that you must have a song and beat that is not only hot, but marketable. What’s hot to you may not be hot to the big market. The fans all over will determine if the song goes platinum or not, in the case of an independent artist.

When you are just starting to build your fan-base, it is about you, but it is more about the fans. Once you’ve built up a huge fan-base that will follow you off the cliff of Mount Everest, then you can change the trend and do whatever you want to do. But in the beginning stages, you have to listen to your fans. Your song has to be marketable, because the next step after your record your songs is marketing.

We will go over a few marketing principles in a future article, but understand that the beats you use and the songs you write are the foundation in your efforts to reach your goals in the industry. It wouldn’t make sense to build a house on sand, because it’s not a strong foundation. The same applies to your career in the music business, and on your songs. Don’t build your songs on weak beats, and don’t build your career on weak songs.

If you want to become successful in the music industry, then you must do the things that successful artists do...