Hip Hop Music Producers

A lot of people listen to the song, but they don't know all the things that went down in making it a great song; they hear the album, but only recognize the rapper, and don't know he had some guidance in the studio. Except for heavyweight producers like Dr. Dre, Timbaland and Kanye West, the public rarely know about the contribution of other music producers in making some rap songs great. The "title" of a hip hop music producer shouldn't be confused with that of an individual that makes hip hop beats and sends as file to rappers.





Lex Lugar has made a lot of banging southern influenced beats (B.M.F, Hustle Hard...) in the past 3 years, but he is more of an example of a beat-maker, than an actual hip hop music producer. A beat maker sends the beat down and doesn't necessarily have to be there in the studio with the artist, but on the other hand, a producer gets into things like song arrangement and composition. A record producer is basically the conductor of a medley of activities that will ultimately result in a sound. The producer will work with the beat-maker, directly with the artist, the studio audio engineer, and everyone else involved in the song making process till he comes up with the finished product.







I wrote this article cos I discovered that a lot of rap listeners downplay the role of music producers in the hip hop scene. For example, a lot of people like "I'm On One", the DJ Khaled song which features Drake, Rick Ross and Lil Wayne, but don't know that T-Minus put that together. And they don't know he also produced Lil Wayne's "She Will", Nicki Minaj's "Moment 4 Life" and Drake's "The Motto"...all very great songs. People enjoyed Drake's Take Care album, but they don't know that music producer, Noah "40" Shebib was responsible for overseeing 90% of the production on the album. Of cos beat-makers like Boi- a da and some others made beats for the album, but "40" still had to work on most of the tracks in the studio with Drake.





That's the big difference between a beat-maker and a producer; one sends the beat down, and the other would be present in the studio with the artist, sort of like a coach during the recording session. I remember Snoop Dogg coming to Dre's rescue a couple of years back concerning the claims that Daz Dillinger and Warren G didn't receive credits for the beats they had made for Dre's Chronic (1992) album and Snoop's Doggystyle (1993) album. Snoop said they just submitted beats, but that Dre re-worked them, and turned them to something else.





Other notable Hip Hop record producers are RZA, Dark Child, Havoc, No. ID, Pete Rock, Salaam Remi, Large Professor, The Neptunes,  Jim Jonsin (responsible for producing Motivation, Kiss Me Through The Phone, Lollipop...), Pete Rock...the list is endless. I was just going through Just Blaze's credits the other day, and I was blown away. I didn't know he produced the Mase and Harlem World track, "I Like It"...that was a jam back in 1999. He also is responsible for producing Beanie Sigel's Roc the Mic, Jay-Z's Girls Girls Girls, Camron's Oh Boy, Kanye West' Touch The Sky, Eric Sermon and Redman's React, Fabolous's Breathe, Eminem's No Love feat. Lil Wayne, and a lot of other tracks. The dude's catalog is amazing.






So how much do they earn? Well, it depends. Beat-makers make between $5-25k per beat, but producers make more than that. Some record producers like Kanye West, Dre and Timbaland make between 100-250k dollars or more per song. Others like Havoc, DJ Premiere, Cool N Dre and Just Blaze make between $30-70k a beat. Some are the rave of the moment for a while, and then they are off the scene after a couple of years. Scott Storch was making hundreds of thousands of dollars per song produced back in the mid 2000s, but he is currently bankrupt and in a lot of trouble with the law. Birdman recently bought his $7 million mansion after it was foreclosed.