“That’s what I thought you said. Now let me offer this as a rebuttal...” Those words, spoken by SpongeBob Squarepants, are Swedish producer Izak’s producer tag and the first thing the listener hears when YBN Nahmir’s breakthrough “Rubbin’ Off the Paint” plays. Izak’s instrumental, categorized as a “type beat,” imitates the airy sound producer Pi’erre Bourne made his calling card on songs like Playboi Carti’s “Magnolia.” “Rubbin’ Off the Paint” put Nahmir and Izak on the map, but its success—it peaked at No. 46 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and its video is at 132 million plays on YouTube—also proved that type beats producers are more than just a YouTube community with a few scattered success stories like Menace’s “Panda” beat and Murda Beatz’s ascent from obscure type beats producer to hitmaker for Drake and Migos. As more artists and A&Rs turn to this community for production, type beats producers are changing the hip-hop production marketplace for good.
Twenty-three-year-old Guadeloupe-bred producer CashMoneyAp was first introduced to the concept of “type beats” in 2010. “A Jason Derulo type beat, was the first type beat I ever listened to,” CashMoneyAp says over the phone from Los Angeles. “The video had like 5 million views and I was like, ‘What is this?’ They put the name of the rappers on the video like a title, like it’s an actual song, but it’s just a beat.” This video introduced him to type beats, instrumentals that attempt to replicate the sound of a scene that are labeled to grab the attention of aspiring rappers trying to catch the wave. Eight years after his initial exposure to the type beats community Cash has become one of rap’s most prolific producers and savviest businessmen, producing hits for YoungBoy Never Broke Again, Lil Skies, and Migos, helping to transform this movement, originally rooted in mimicry, into a hip-hop production market that could turn anyone with access to FruityLoops into a star overnight.
The emergence of the type beats community as a legitimate force in rap music was initially met with resistance from veteran producers like 9th Wonder, who, in a since-deleted tweet from 2016, said, “Note to producers; don’t be a ‘type beat’ style producer.” Type beats critics felt the scene was comprised of copycats who merely regurgitated popular sounds and profited from it—“biters.” But rap has always been about bending and breaking rules set by previous generations and coming up with clever means to get your music heard. Labeling a production a “type beat” is simply a marketing ploy to get that beat noticed. Producers use the “type beat” label to attract clicks and purchases from aspiring rappers. When the Chicago drill scene exploded in the early 2010s, the rap world went into a frenzy, attempting to find production with a sound similar to the beats of drill architects DJ L and Young Chop. Inspired by their production early on, CashMoneyAp imitated their production styles before developing his own. “From 2012 to 2015 I was trying to get to rappers from Chicago, like Chief Keef.”
CashMoneyAp started to create music inspired by the sound of Chicago, hoping to fill rappers’ growing demand for beats in that genre. To get their attention, he posted them on SoundClick, a marketplace for beats. “I’d say I was probably making a thousand [dollars] to two thousand a month at most. Being like 16, 17 years old and already making $1,000 to $2,000 a month was good.” He kept his prices low in an effort to establish himself and make his music accessible to artists with small budgets but high potential. Cash also benefited from leasing beats. The concept of leasing beats is built on non-exclusivity; an artist can use the beat and treat it as their own but if they want to ensure that they are the only rapper who can use it and release it they must purchase it outright. “My lease prices started at $20 [USD] but I used Euros in Guadeloupe, so $20 wasn’t as much. I had to increase my price to $30.”
As CashMoneyAp’s audience grew on YouTube, he needed to find a way to stand out in a highly competitive scene in the midst of a post-drill explosion. “I think I started really going up when I started dropping free beats,” he says. By letting artists use his beats for free Cash increased his name recognition, bumped his name up to the top of YouTube’s search results, and hooked rappers on these free samples. The only catch was the artists couldn’t profit from these beats because they did not have the rights to them; if they wanted something exclusive they had to pay for it. “The only way to stand out is to be unique like I did. I started the trend with free beats.” Cash’s marketing approach blew up and set the community on a path towards a more businesslike approach. Soon enough, when rappers began to search for things like “Chief Keef, Young Thug, or Lil Durk type beats” Cash’s name would be the first result to appear.
Cash’s tactic of optimizing his beats and brand raised his profile in the YouTube community which, in turn, allowed him to raise his prices. “The first option [an mp3] is 50 bucks. The WAV [a higher quality audio file] is 60 bucks. The third option [including an mp3, WAV, and track stems] is 150 bucks. And then we got the exclusive.” The “exclusive,” according to Cash, is when rappers make an offer for exclusive rights to a beat, which Cash will accept or reject depending on the popularity of the beat on YouTube. Cash’s business acumen quickly made him a central figure in the community and the number of his beats sold or leased per month rose to about 500. His manager, Universal Music Group executive and Pusha-T’s manager Steven Victor, described CashMoneyAp’s income as being in the “high six-figures” from type beats. When asked why he signed CashMoneyAp, Victor says, “I just kept hearing his beats every time I met up with a [prospective] artist. All the songs I liked from the artists that I was working with were produced by him.”
Cash credits some of his newfound success to being able to distinguish who were the most popular artists to name his type beats after, an essential part of the marketing process. “Chief Keef and Lil Durk used to be the most popular ones. Young Thug, he’s still super popular. So I think he’s going to last.”
The amount of producers flourishing in this community has led to an influx of beat makers looking for similar success. And while these producers fight for table scraps, CashMoneyAp has graduated into a budding superstar. He’s the template and the beatmaker every young up-and-comer wants to become. When rappers come to CashMoneyAp’s YouTube page or BeatStars account—an alternative to SoundClick that provides assurances like the ability to draft contracts for producers—they know it will be affordable and his name will get you some clicks in the process.
Now CashMoneyAp is a full-fledged business with over 500,000 YouTube subscribers, gold records, and a lawyer who drafts his contracts. He is even in the process of starting his own label and using his platform to amplify up-and-coming producers—for a price of course. “The goal right now is to build an empire,” he says. “[I want to] start signing producers so I can help them. I’m already big on YouTube. I’m just gonna help them so they don’t have to worry about views. They can just send me the deets, I can upload for them and take a small cut from the sales.” He’s gone from the imitator to the producer everyone in the type beats community wants to be like—the copier is now the copied.
