Hi, my name is Neal and my school is participating in the Genius Hour Project. I have decided that due to my love of rap music I want to learn how to produce rap beats. I am very excited to start producing and creating my own tracks. Rap is a very big part of the Bay Area music and culture. Many successful rappers like Mac Dre, E-40, MC Hammer, and G-Eazy have come from the Bay Area. After doing some research, I found out that producing beats is quite simple to learn but hard to master. I also found out people sell beats to artist who need a track to put the lyrics over. I want to be able to make a track for multiple styles of rap. For example I want to make tracks showing drill rap, old school rap, and underground hip hop. I feel that this sample of the genres of rap shows the diversity of hip hop. I want to focus on rap specifically because I feel that it is generally portrayed as swearing and crime when it really is poetry with a beat. Producing beats in the 80's consisted of sampling records and using a turntable to create sound effects. Producing modern tracks consists of using soundboards and instruments to make unique sounds. I am still deciding if I should create my music by recording instruments or using pre-made beats found online. The pre-made beats can be found online on websites such as Beatstars or Sound cloud. You can find thousands of free sounds online. The basic drill rap beats consists of lots of bass, some hi hat, and no high vocals. The final mix tape that I make will be uploaded to Sound Cloud. I need to make all of my beats original and creative because a lot of drill rap for example sounds exactly the same. My beats should be easily recognized. I also want to have a trademark or catchphrase that I wanna play before the song starts. For example, I can say something like "DJ Neal, The best producer in the bay area". This will let people know that they are listening to one of my songs. My songs should sound original an unique. In order to create the tracks in need to use a soundboard and computer software. Some software like Garage Band has a built in synthesizer and keyboard. I can make the beats that way easily. I am excited to get started and dive right into this project!
