Music
“Just as big as the rappers”: inside the rise of hip-hop producers
In 2021, homegrown beatmakers are ascending to new heights. We spoke to two of the names leading the charge about why the scene is so strong right now.
In a music studio hidden inside a Sydney apartment complex, magic is being made. We are 28 levels up with the lights of Liverpool glittering below; a blanket of man-made stars across the city’s Western suburbs.
At the mic, singer and rapper A.Girl is recording a song she penned in the notes app on her phone just an hour prior. To her left is BeatswithSheph, the production alias of Aayan Ahmed, who made the beat she’s singing over. With every take, he gives her notes on how to approach the vocals: sometimes a request for more energy, at other moments a request dial up or down the huskiness of her voice. “This might sound strange,” he says to her at one point. “But can you smirk a bit while you’re singing this?”
This is not the first time A.Girl and BeatswithSheph have worked together. The pair first teamed up for A.Girl’s 64 Bars, a track she titled ‘Vision’, and are now back together in the studio to see what else they can create. ‘Vision’ dropped on May 4 -- a fortuitous date for Sheph. He quit his job exactly a year prior to pursue music production full time. It’s hard not to see that release date as a sign he’s on the right path.
Music producer BeatswithSheph.
© Guy Davies
It’s also not surprising that Sheph is on the up. As well as having the talent it takes, he’s working in a boom time for Australian producers. As the Australian hip-hop scene has gone from strength to strength over the past few years, so too have the producers working behind the scenes on beats. As Sheph himself describes it: “I think the producer is half the track. Without an artist, there’s no producer and without a producer, there’s no artist.”
The strength of the local scene was what inspired Sheph to open the studio. At the time, he was making his own music as part of an R&B/Afrobeat trio called Regular Basis.
“We needed a space for us to make music in. At the time I was working as an electrician, so I really wanted to make the transition from being a sparkie to a fulltime music producer,” he tells Red Bull. “Then after we opened the space, seeing how much talent was coming out of Sydney, I was like, why not open it to the public and see how it goes? And it’s been the best decision ever.”
Sheph isn’t the only producer riding the wave right now.
“It’s an open playing field and there are a lot of talented bedroom producers all over the country that are as good technically as big time producers from around the world,” says Macario de Souza, aka Kid Mac, the architect behind Red Bull’s 64 Bars series.
“They just needed an opportunity and platform and the internet was that for them. Good music is being heard worldwide thanks to streaming platforms and YouTube and that’s been the difference in the last few years. In the past, there were less platforms like this around to be heard.”
“It’s an exciting time for beat makers right now"
And all eyes are on Australia: “I deal a lot with producing teams all over the world and they are purposely scouting and seeking producing talent from Australia to join their teams or work remotely to collaborate on big artist projects,” Mac says. “It’s an exciting time for beat makers right now.”
Jay Orient
© @joeybailey
Another producer on the way up is Jay Orient, who crafted the beat for rapper JK47’s forthcoming 64 Bars. He and JK go way back, having grown up together in Northern NSW. JK’s nan lived over the back fence from Jay and would hop over the fence with his brother to “come jump on the trampoline.”
It was a hip-hop song that got Jay into production. He heard ‘Moment of Truth’ by Gang Starr on a Playstation 2 game as a kid and was immediately hooked. But it was the beats, not the bars, that stuck out to him. “Years later I found that full album and I was researching who the hell was making the beats. It was DJ Premiere and I fell in love with what he did -- how he chops his samples and plays his drums.”
Today, Jay produces for artists like JK-47 as well as making his own beats. He has noticed the production scene’s growth.
“I think it’s definitely in a better place each year than it was the year before,” he tells Red Bull. “I feel like producers definitely have more of a platform. It’s getting like how it is in America, you see producers and they’re like artists in and of themselves. They’re just as big as the rappers.”
He also thinks there’s an advantage to being behind the scenes. “I feel like when you’re a rapper, it’s kind of a competition with everyone. When you’re a producer, you can just do whatever you want, with whoever you want. It’s very different.”
When you’re a rapper, it’s a competition with everyone. When you’re a producer, you can just do whatever you want, with whoever you want
But both Sheph and Jay Orion think that the best collaborations come when there’s a good creative chemistry between the rapper and the producer -- and when you can move with the mood of a session.
“Recently I’ve realised that going into a session with too much expectation can kind of hold you back,” Jay says. “I had a session the other night with Liyah Knight, a singer from Sydney, and played her a bunch of stuff and she was like ‘yeah, that’s all cool, but I think it would be better if we just make something right now together’. And it was. It was sick. And that couldn’t have happened unless we were there together.”
“I think a lot of the time when the chemistry between the artist and the producer isn’t there, it definitely shows in the quality of the music,” Sheph adds. “But with A.Girl, we get along on a different level.”
Sheph is excited to see where the production scene goes from here, and who else he can welcome into his Liverpool studio.
“I think Australian producers will grow with Australian artists. Because so many artists are coming out with such a strong sound, it’s given the producers a direction in terms of making beats -- like this is what’s popping right now, this is what we need to focus on,” he says.
“And I think together we’re making a really authentic sound coming from Australia.”
4 min
A.Girl Red Bull 64 Bars
In her 64 Bars track 'Vision', Sydney rapper and singer A.Girl calls for unity in the Australian hip-hop scene.
