From Church Rhythms to EDM Anthems: Breaking Barriers for Emerging Rappers and Vocalists with Dre Hall of Beatsora

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And so I heard it and I was like
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dum-dee-dum-dum-dum
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blew my mind.
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I didn't grow up with internet as well.
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Probably an important thing.
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Wait what?
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I'm joined today by the multifaceted Mr Dre Hall.
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He is, amongst other things, a producer, DJ, an educator, an entrepreneur.
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He's here today as CEO of Beatsora.
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Dre.
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Hello, hi, man.
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Thanks for having me.
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Nice to see you again.
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So, Beatsora, tell us a bit more about it.
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What is it, what does it do and who is it for?
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Beatsora is meant to help emerging artists sustain their careers in the music industry.
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It was born out of my experience as an educator and seeing a lot of talented artists and young people do very, very well when they had the resources, but those resources were often locked behind a very big paywall like most things in this world, unfortunately and so I took it upon myself to try and build a platform that compiles as many of the different elements of music creation under a single subscription and try to make it as cheap as possible but also offering the most amount of quality, and just try to remove a bit of that financial ceiling for people starting out in the industry.
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That's a great mission.
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I think there's a lot out there that is aimed at producers.
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So when you're talking about artists, who are we talking about more specifically within that?
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I think our primary focus is more so emerging rappers.
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Being in London, you know, pretty sure everyone knows someone that tries to express themselves through the medium of rap, and we found that primarily what we were was a beat marketplace, and so everyone knows BeatStars.
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I think they're a great platform it's amazing what they've done, but they are really primarily focused as a marketplace for producers really, and so what happens is many, many bedroom producers or beginner producers to advanced producers are able to put their songs out there, but no one is really protected from any copyright material, and so what you find often is that either you're sifting through a lot of bad quality tracks from producers that maybe don't have the most experience, or also you might purchase a track once you've finally found one and find that there's a copyrighted sample in there that you don't realize until Spotify flags it.
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So we try to focus on that as our foundation to make sure that that never happens, and so we only work with acclaimed producers and provide licenses that we know cover anything that an artist would really need from a lease perspective and never encounter the problem of having any copyright material in the track.
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So you've kind of addressing the quality issues.
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So someone didn't just chuck up a bunch of beats on BeatStars, you know, and you kind of have to sift through that.
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I guess the legal slash, you know, you kind of have to sift through that, I guess the legal slash, you know, no nasty surprises of the copyright, yes, of getting stung later.
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But also a final element of the accessibility piece that you you kind of mentioned at the beginning, which is, if I'm a vocal artist, maybe I want to make a track but I don't know how, or I don't have the tools, or I, you know, need to find someone to make it sound good.
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A lot of that is not available, I think, particularly for the vocalist side.
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I think on the producer side and DJ side there's a bit more knowledge about tools and know-how and stuff.
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But, if I'm correct, Beatsora also kind of provides the technology to allow vocalists to create a high quality track.
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Yeah.
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Well, the technology came afterwards.
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The inception of it really was you know, if you're a rapper or just anyone that wants to begin making music, you know how do you begin.
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You know you don't know what anything is, and I think oftentimes people find themselves in a in a financial trap of thinking I need to spend a lot of money, you know, just to figure out how everything works.
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So we we tried to make our focus that the beginner.
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If this is your starting point, you come in you don't know any producers, you don't know where to record, you don't know the difference between an MP3 file and a web file.
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You just want to get started, you just want to be creative.
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With that being our focus, we then started to see that there were other areas outside of just the instrumental that we need to try and tackle.
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So we looked into.
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I think it was AI mastering next.
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We're well aware that there is no way to replace the era of an engineer with 25 years of mastering experience, but again, when we're looking at someone that doesn't have the financial resources or the education to know what they want, the AI mastering is a good starting point, and so we allowed people to put in a reference track of something that they like and say, yeah, I want it to sound like you know this Burna Boy track, and then put their song in there and the AI mastering will analyze everything and try to apply all of the compression and EQ changes onto their song.
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And so that began our technical journey into Beatsora by just thinking how do we make this process very easy to implement and easy to understand for someone that's never done this before?
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We then went on to AI lyrics as well, because we saw, you know, like writer's block and just not replacing the creative process and not saying that there's any way to have the AI write a whole song for you.
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But what we found was, with a lot of young rappers and their unfortunately TikTok brain, they're not really used to being creative, and so this is a really good tool where they can put the first line of their song or the topic of what they want to talk about and have a beginning point of okay, so maybe I can make a song about just feeling depressed, and that's all they can express is I just feel down and I don't know why and I just want to get into a song.
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Okay, cool, so we can use the ai lyrics to help facilitate that creative process.
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And so then we just began building on that um to try and give us as as much as we can in the subscription for for the beginner and also for intermediates that may be struggling in one specific area of their music creation.
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So we're kicking off the day with a Tye Tribbet track, which is Chasing After you from 2008.
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Just for everyone listening, I don't tend to ask the guests ahead of time why they've chosen things, but some people like to add a little bit of information.
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And two words, Dre sent around this was "childhood influences, so I'd love to hear from you, dre, how that has played into things from childhood and onwards.
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Oh man, it's a little bit nostalgic, actually, because it was one of the first songs that I can remember me truly loving as a child, because I grew up in church and I was a drummer from a very young age.
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My dad was a drummer, my mum was a singer and that was my introduction into music and performance and rhythm and genres and working as a team and rehearsals.
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It was the foundation of everything that happened after my teens.
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It was the way that I got into interning at a studio, mainly because I loved drums and I loved music and through drums I realized my love for production and composition and working with people.
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And it's got a very, very long drum intro that I practiced religiously as a child and it's just a song that stuck with me.
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Honestly, it's not a song that I could ever not remember.
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I think I still remember how to play that drum uh intro up until now, but it was yeah, it was just.
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It was the genesis of everything.
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Looking back, it was I love doing this, I love being in music and this was one of the songs that was really influential, put me on my journey to working with huge brands, touring the world and then being an educator and also now starting the beat store and the tech company previously you mentioned this, you know, concept of tiktok brain or the influence of particular types of music or lyrics on people and it kind of puts you into a certain mindset.
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And then you mentioned your own influence through church and that way of experiencing music through faith and spirituality.
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What are your thoughts on how music, as a pretty complex thing, can lead you down different paths?
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It can have different messages.
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How does that fit with with how you approach beat aura?
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looking at it from some of the students that I teach.
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You know they're all quite young and they're all trying to find themselves and so they don't have many mediums other than music.
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You know they have YouTube and there's a lot of influences there.
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But you know, back when I was younger, in the early 90s, early 2000s, you know music is something that you flock to very quickly and the celebrities that you're listening to, or the musicians that you listen to, whatever their message is, often you start resonating with very well and even, you know, starting to replicate in one way or another.
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You kind of take on their attributes, because who they are is being shown through the music.
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It's a difficult question to answer, because I didn't listen to we call it secular music in church.
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I didn't listen to anything commercial.
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Until very, very, very late in my life I was only listening to gospel music, so there was no other real frame of reference at that point in time.
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It was.
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This is who I am, and I think what I got from it, more so than anything, was the purpose of Christianity and religion in my early life, I think, was to show me the kind of person that I wanted to be, and it wasn't necessarily following a strict set of rules, but making sure that I do more good than bad, trying to shine more light than darkness and that sounds really cliche saying it like that, but really when I break it down I think that was the main thing that I got from the music I was listening to was just be a good person.
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I don't think that's always the message, that is, you know that that's given in some of other music, in in commercialized music sometimes, especially when you're looking at john with like drill and you see that everyone's just talking from their own experience.
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But the influence that that can have on you as a young child can really shape you in the years to come.
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And yeah, I think gospel music was was that.
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for me, it was a very big influencer in just do more good than bad man.
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I mean as you're, as you're saying that I'm thinking through the idea of motivation, which is why do people want to create music?
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Why do people get into music?
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If I heard you correctly, you were inspired through the music itself.
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It seems you weren't necessarily trying to become some kind of superstar or get cars and money and such right, absolutely not.
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No, I mean, I I wouldn't say it was all I had, but because my parents were both musicians, it was.
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I was surrounded by it and naturally growing up in a Pentecostal church, which then for anyone that listening, pentecostal church is a very like new age church somebody might think of.
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The Catholic church is what they think of when they think of church, which is very like hymns and very strict and it's like oh no, you know, we're doing Afro beats in church.
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You know, you know, like we still have all those genres and even now there's like gospel drill, which is amazing.
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Wow, I've not heard of that.
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Oh, I was told by someone, a very good friend of mine, nice story of coming from a life that maybe he shouldn't have been so involved in and actually converting to church, but his musical influences stayed the same, it's just his messaging was different and so now he does.
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It's very, very good.
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Yeah, going back to your question, no, it was never a motivation of fame, it was.
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It was.
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It was all I knew at one point.
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And then something I realized I deeply enjoyed the more that I experienced other things it was.
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Actually nothing is giving me as much enjoyment as just being behind these drums and that naturally progressed into.
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Actually I like to compose everything rather than relying on a guitarist and a bassist and a keyboard, and you know, realize it very quickly.
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It's just difficult to have the level of commitment from a large portion of people to drive a vision forward which then led me into my production and composition days.
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But then doing that was a slight clash, because now I missed being on stage and because I was no longer drumming, I was composing, and so then DJing very quickly came into the mix, into the fray, because then I can compose my stuff and I can still perform, but it still always goes back to the root of it was all trying to continue the love that I had from church and and listening to them also say not, not church itself, but the the performance aspects, the musical aspect of my church days.
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I think it was a very big guiding light in a lot of the decisions I made throughout my career musically.
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What I'm curious about is that journey starts in church.
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I'd like to kind of understand from you where that went to in terms of that motivation, that love, because, listening to Tye Tribbett, I think he did a an interview on the Breakfast Club when he talked about his struggle with depression, having kind of come from a background of making music for the love of it but actually getting to a point where social media and the fame and the celebrity side of things started to get to him.
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So he almost came from a place of love and got to a pretty dark place from it.
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Be good to hear about how you found that journey for yourself.
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This is quite a reflective time for me actually now thinking about it.
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So, to skip forward, I was shadowing in studios from 14 and then I was giving a grant by the Prince's Trust at 19 to open up my own studio, and my experience playing drums, dancing and then being in the studio every single day whenever I could it gave me all the skills I needed to basically run my own studio and understand enough about engineering that I could engineer for other people.
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I ended up being interviewed 1Extra, by Sian Anderson and DJ Target, at the age of 19, which was amazing.
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At the time I was like this is crazy, and now, looking back, I can understand what's a 19-year-old doing?
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You know, recording a quartet.
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How did this happen?
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But then I moved to London to go to university and very quickly found that I hated it, because everything they were teaching in that first foundational year I learned two, three years ago from just being in a recording studio like a professional recording studio, and so that's where the feeling of wanting to perform came back and I started DJing.
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So went to Ibiza because I thought you know, young kid, I'm 21, 22, whatever it is, I'm just gonna go, why not?
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Yeah, that, that, that, uh, the optimism, that youthful optimism you have as a young 20 year old, I'll just make something happen.
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And I just went to every club and just asked if they needed a dj.
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That was my strategy as a 22 year old.
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It was out of wanting to learn.
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You know how do I become a dj?
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This is the place where you know the over dj wants to perform, or so I thought at the time.
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You know, in ibiza, so that's where I'm going to start I was given a slot and essentially, the half an hour slot turned into an hour and the hour turned into the whole night and I was given offered a residency, basically, and ibiza can be like that, like it can be like that, so a dj can take your spot.
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You know, unless you're in a very, very good club headlining it's an extremely competitive area where, yeah, it was a very eye opening experience of, wow, this is not safe kind of thing.
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So I did, uh, two years in ibiza and just kind of going back to to what you were saying about, you know, like depression and fame and also church, I found that I hated every single aspect of it other than the performing.
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I didn't drink, didn't do drugs didn't touch girls, I didn't party, I did.
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I just I was there and I was like I'm here to do my set and that's what I'm here to do.
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Everything else that was offered was like no.
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And then that continued as I began to tour in Australia and South Korea and Australia definitely being one where you know no.
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And then that continued as I began to tour in australia and south korea, and australia definitely being one where you know I saw things that I was just like.
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This is not this.
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All this extra stuff that comes with performing that people, I think, sometimes enjoy the level, sometimes the level of escapism maybe I was not.
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Therefore, and I think that also came from the values that were instilled in me from church of this is not what music is.
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You can have music and have all the performance elements of it and feel amazing and be creative and expressive without doing this extra stuff.
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That's not.
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That's not.
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What is that why we became djs?
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To do choice, sleep with random girls.
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It's crazy.
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I have countless stories of seeing people overdosed, you know, living with other DJs and seeing the life that they were living, being Ibiza DJs every single year and just almost being an observer.
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Just this is absolutely crazy.
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This is crazy, but in your estimation.
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So when you're saying, okay, is this why you became a DJ, would you say that does apply to like, let's say, eight out of 10 or nine out of 10 people who go to Ibiza to get residency, because it's kind of like the rockstar lifestyle right, you're partying, you're performing, yeah, but there's the drugs and everything.
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Like, how many would you say were in it for that?
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I don't think many people are in it for that specifically, I think anyone in there is in their young teens, like you know.
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They now have this adult label slapped on your forehead and you don't know what that means.
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So you have to go out and experiment with things and you try things.
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You're like, okay, well, now I can drink, now I can do drugs, now I can travel, and inherently, those things are going to come with partying.
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And I think just being a DJ, especially a young one, is no different from being a normal person.
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You're in the exact same environment, except you're not on the stage, and the accessibility to all of these things, I wouldn't even say, is higher, especially if you're in a place like Ibiza.
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You can do the exact same thing on and off the stage.
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You know you're no different.
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You're just exposed to that environment a lot more, I would say.
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And yeah, I, I don't think it inherently is something maybe some people are searching for.
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I think maybe people enjoy it.
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It's, it's very exciting.
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You know, it's very nice to, to, to be on stage and to constantly control this crowd like, wow, that mix was great, um, but then also, yeah, live the rockstar lifestyle of traveling and not having to worry about the same consequences everyone else has to do because you're playing by different rules, and to me it feels like escapism to me, but it's.
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I also don't feel like I'm qualified to make much of a judgment on that, because I didn't grow up in the way a lot of people did.
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So my perception of what music and performance can be I, I was shown that you can have all of those things without it needing to devote them to.
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You know drugs and girls and drinking, and because that was my norm, everything else seems strange.
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But maybe if I grew up very differently, maybe I wouldn't have felt that right, this is just normal, this is just what you do, which in some cases, is probably quite true actually so I want to kind of hold on to the idea of some of these themes you've touched on.
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You've mentioned environment values, um, the value of performance for the love of it versus doing it for something else.
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At this point, I'd like to move on to the second track that you've sent through.
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This one, I think, is dum dee, dum, dum dum.
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Yeah, I hope we don't get copyright strike for that.
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So this is Keys and Crates from Canada, but specifically, this is the Nightmare remix that was released through Trap Nation.
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Tell us a bit more about why you chose this song and its significance to you.
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So this was the, I'd say, the second leg of my musical journey and my musical career, which was the production element and what allowed me to start traveling.
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So this was the first song that my little brother showed me in my third studio when I was doing studios, and he showed me this and I was like what is this?
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I 'd never heard of Trap City.
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I've never heard of like EDM, trap or bass music in this way.
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Because, again, coming from where I came from was, you know, gospel music and then you know slight introductions to rap and hip hop and stuff and grime back then, but nothing like this, nothing like solely electronic and production based, because I wasn't in those environments so it was completely alien to me.
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You know house music, drum and bass, dubstep, all that stuff.
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I never heard it.
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I just wasn't in the environment for about two decades and so I heard it and I was like this is blew my mind.
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I loved everything about it and I started just kind of delving into this rabbit hole of EDM music and bass music and how different music can be and you don't need instruments.
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I mean, I knew you could make drums with hip hop and stuff, but I just never heard anything like this, the manipulation of vocals into a melody like this.
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It was just my first experience and it lit a fire, absolutely completely engulfed, where I was, like this is amazing, I want to learn more about this.
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And I eventually the whole anecdote name was born through deciding to go down this EDM trap music genre.
00:20:45.294 --> 00:20:56.344
Doing that, I experimented with songs and I put one out called Witch Direction, which I kind of really dislike it now, but at the time it was my first repetition of the genre.
00:20:57.289 --> 00:21:01.781
And Billy from a label he was the owner of NCS, no Copyright Sounds.
00:21:01.781 --> 00:21:12.778
He heard the song on SoundCloud and he wanted to sign it At the time, never knew what the label was Said yeah, cool Again, young kid, sign away.
00:21:12.778 --> 00:21:14.516
This was all before Ibiza as well, I think.
00:21:14.516 --> 00:21:20.125
Within a week or so it had like a million streams on YouTube.
00:21:20.125 --> 00:21:24.702
And then this again.
00:21:24.702 --> 00:21:26.799
You know, if you try to imagine this, I didn't grow up with internet as well.
00:21:26.799 --> 00:21:27.609
Sorry, it's probably an important thing.
00:21:27.609 --> 00:21:29.233
Wait what?
00:21:29.233 --> 00:21:32.595
We didn't have internet.
00:21:32.595 --> 00:21:46.377
So again, all of these things, things that people experienced in their early childhood I was experiencing in my 20s and between, like 10, was just church drums and, you know, shadowing and learning as much as I can about whatever it is.
00:21:46.377 --> 00:21:48.001
I was, you know, in regards to music.
00:21:48.001 --> 00:21:51.394
So all of these revelations came and I and I saw a million.
00:21:51.394 --> 00:21:53.737
I was like what?
00:21:53.737 --> 00:21:57.363
What like it was completely.
00:21:57.403 --> 00:22:01.329
It was the just continuous confusion of how did this happen?
00:22:01.329 --> 00:22:10.326
Um released another couple songs and developed a very good relationship with ncs and billy and then I think we got to turn it up, which is probably one of my biggest songs that's been used on.
00:22:10.326 --> 00:22:15.376
You know, I think it's like four billion videos, I think, status now at some point, it's something like that.
00:22:15.376 --> 00:22:21.164
Um, I think the sidemen used it as well, which is really nice, and that's now like 50 million, something like that.
00:22:21.164 --> 00:22:22.701
It's one of my, one of my biggest songs.
00:22:22.701 --> 00:22:26.256
It allowed me to start touring as an artist because I've been millions of streams.
00:22:26.256 --> 00:22:40.955
It helps me understand the music industry a lot more, with contracts, you know, collaborating with people over the internet that I've never met before and really was just like, yeah, the genesis of my production and composition leg of my career.
00:22:41.257 --> 00:22:47.563
And yeah, it literally started with that song and then, a few years later, I actually was managed to release with trap city and again it was that.
00:22:47.563 --> 00:22:49.328
This is.
00:22:49.328 --> 00:22:50.291
This is amazing.
00:22:50.291 --> 00:22:51.054
Like no way.
00:22:51.054 --> 00:22:52.901
I can't believe this has happened.
00:22:52.901 --> 00:23:06.290
So, yeah, it's a song very, very important to myself and my career and just quickly, as I just looking over, I just noticed that on my desk I still have an award that was given to me in South Korea from the World Pop, music and Screen Awards in 2018.
00:23:06.290 --> 00:23:11.824
That is still something I hold very, very proud, and it was called DJ and Producer Rising Star Award.
00:23:11.824 --> 00:23:12.285
Artist.
00:23:12.285 --> 00:23:25.971
Anecdote thought and you know this is very, it's very reflective doing this with you because I realized you know how the thing intertwined into the journey so far.
00:23:25.971 --> 00:23:28.337
But, yeah, that was the song that started it all it's interesting.
00:23:28.378 --> 00:23:30.945
You chose this track and I'm not sure how intentional this was.
00:23:30.945 --> 00:23:39.122
I already see a couple of parallels with it and what you're describing and I'll throw them both out there and you can pick and choose if you want to respond to either of them.
00:23:39.122 --> 00:23:50.759
So, if I remember the original video of the Keys and Crates track, they went to like a Mennonite, like village or whatever with like a boombox and they played them this music.
00:23:50.759 --> 00:23:58.336
So I guess that the concept was like we're going to take this crazy electronic music to a community that hasn't heard anything like it before.
00:23:58.336 --> 00:24:03.803
When you're saying, okay, the no internet thing is almost like you were experiencing something like that for the first time.
00:24:03.803 --> 00:24:04.828
So that that's one thing.
00:24:04.828 --> 00:24:06.960
And yeah, if you haven't checked out that video, check it out.
00:24:07.019 --> 00:24:09.994
I'm not comparing the two directly, but that's, that's one parallel.
00:24:09.994 --> 00:24:13.602
Yeah, the second one was, I think, nightmare himself.
00:24:13.602 --> 00:24:19.817
I think Skrillex played that track or one of his tracks, a gig somewhere, like he DJed.
00:24:19.817 --> 00:24:25.355
I think that led to him getting signed to Mad Decent, which is, you know, big label for this.
00:24:25.355 --> 00:24:28.343
So there's a couple of parallels within that.
00:24:28.343 --> 00:24:32.364
I'm not sure if that was conscious, subconscious or if you want to take anything from that at all.
00:24:32.454 --> 00:24:33.718
I'd say completely subconscious.
00:24:33.718 --> 00:24:42.375
It was when I was asked for three songs that shaped you know.
00:24:42.375 --> 00:24:43.401
You know three songs that meant the most to me.
00:24:43.401 --> 00:24:47.217
I think most people think about just songs that they like and you know, and there's many songs, you know, there's so many songs that I like, but those are just.
00:24:47.217 --> 00:24:50.645
This was one of the three that just came to me because I will never forget it.
00:24:50.766 --> 00:24:55.462
I will never forget that moment with my brother because it was such a mind-blowing thing.
00:24:55.462 --> 00:25:02.864
I'm sure quite a lot of people in any career, in any sector, will remember the first time that it was this flame sparked.
00:25:02.864 --> 00:25:17.200
There was of this, you know, there was this reason why you went down that path to wherever it is that you are now, and whether it's a good path or a bad path, there was something that happened in your life that says this is the direction you're now taking and that's forever ingrained in me so,
00:25:17.259 --> 00:25:29.700
as someone who has worked with you, know tens of people in this type of a type of way and you know through many more via Beatsora do you think you've helped create, or Beatsora has helped create, that spark for people?
00:25:29.720 --> 00:25:32.425
have you seen that happen literally in front of your eyes?
00:25:32.425 --> 00:25:35.862
Like some oh, I've my eyes been open to the possibilities here?
00:25:36.061 --> 00:25:38.126
I think definitely with the ai stuff.
00:25:38.126 --> 00:25:50.121
Yes, I can see that, um, it's so interesting showing people and mostly it's usually not musicians actually that I that you know when I show them their site and they're like wait, so the the ai masters the song, right, yeah, like.
00:25:50.121 --> 00:25:51.748
Or the lyric generator.
00:25:51.748 --> 00:25:54.557
I'm so proud of the lyric generator because it works so well.
00:25:54.557 --> 00:25:57.421
We do like education in schools and stuff like that.
00:25:57.421 --> 00:26:06.906
And, um, you know, I we work with kids that usually they're struggling with identity or depression, or you know they just want to experiment with music.
00:26:06.906 --> 00:26:15.497
And then, on the other side of the spectrum, young individuals that are very heavily ingrained in gang culture and you know there's no other way to engage them.
00:26:15.497 --> 00:26:33.801
So we can go in and, okay, let's make a song about something, and we find that them using the platform one, them loving the beats, but then also using the AI lyric generator to help them create something that's positive and that's self-reflective, or something that helps them think about their future or their family.
00:26:33.801 --> 00:26:43.243
I see this light switch of oh, so it doesn't just like I can do this, it doesn't just have to be some of the topics that come up.
00:26:43.423 --> 00:26:49.446
Sometimes people are plagued with insecurity and because they don't like the feeling of not knowing how to do something.
00:26:49.446 --> 00:26:59.878
They will keep doing the thing that they know how to do Until someone shows them you can do it this way, and then that it the life changes, and I think that's probably what I've seen with beats.
00:26:59.878 --> 00:27:03.047
Aura is don't worry about the production, the beats all sound good.
00:27:03.047 --> 00:27:04.361
You find something you like.
00:27:04.361 --> 00:27:05.948
Yeah, yeah, I'm inspired, I'm inspired.
00:27:05.948 --> 00:27:08.740
But yo, how can I write about something positive on drill?
00:27:08.740 --> 00:27:10.307
How like they're looking like.
00:27:10.307 --> 00:27:10.828
Are you done?
00:27:10.828 --> 00:27:11.432
Were you crazy?
00:27:11.432 --> 00:27:12.655
I'm like, well, this is how.
00:27:12.655 --> 00:27:13.999
Okay, let's take this tool.
00:27:13.999 --> 00:27:15.182
Boom, there's, there's a whole song.
00:27:15.182 --> 00:27:17.988
Oh man, this is kind of good, you know.
00:27:17.988 --> 00:27:19.759
Yeah, this can work.
00:27:19.759 --> 00:27:22.343
You know, boom inspiration sparked and that's it.
00:27:22.515 --> 00:27:31.343
Now we've been that person, or that fundamental, hopefully change that shows them that, one, you can do it even though you thought that you couldn't.
00:27:31.343 --> 00:27:32.961
If you've never written a song before, you can.
00:27:32.961 --> 00:27:55.300
And two, if you're only writing a certain type of music and you only think there's one way to create music, or you're scared about the huge mounting of knowledge that you need to climb to truly understand how to create the music that you want, it's showing you it doesn't have to be as difficult as you thought it was perhaps this is a um good opportunity to segue into the third and final track, which is pain by noah.
00:27:55.842 --> 00:28:06.740
You want to tell us a bit more about this one oh gosh, yeah, this one, this one's, is very close to my heart and I would say again, probably looking back was probably the Beatsora for as well was was this song.
00:28:06.740 --> 00:28:09.846
I'd say Noaah, who I love two bits.
00:28:09.846 --> 00:28:10.548
He was the.
00:28:10.548 --> 00:28:12.499
He was a young individual.
00:28:12.499 --> 00:28:15.928
I met um in my first ever youth center that I worked in.
00:28:15.928 --> 00:28:19.685
Uh, young, 16 year old, tall, like you.
00:28:19.685 --> 00:28:25.679
Look at him and think he's a lot more confident than he was, but very, very shy, and he battled with mental illness in various ways.
00:28:25.679 --> 00:28:41.624
I don't think it's my place to say the depths of his struggle, but he was definitely in a place where he needed guidance and an outlet and I began working with him about one to two days a week, um, for about two years, and this was the first song that we ever did.
00:28:41.624 --> 00:28:47.967
It was, it was called pain, and my approach with him and with most young people, is to talk about.
00:28:47.967 --> 00:28:51.459
Like if you, we were having a conversation about what's going on in your life.
00:28:51.459 --> 00:28:54.596
You know there's no one else in the studio, it's just me, it's just you.
00:28:54.596 --> 00:28:55.419
What would you write?
00:28:55.419 --> 00:29:03.336
Don't think about a song, just tell me and we just write out whatever it is you're going through, whatever it is that comes to your mind when you just think about my life.
00:29:03.336 --> 00:29:04.200
My life is.
00:29:04.200 --> 00:29:11.184
You know, it's a very good question to ask and a very good introduction into someone who's emotionally mature enough to go down that path.
00:29:11.184 --> 00:29:13.257
And that was what came out from him.
00:29:13.257 --> 00:29:14.137
We made the song.
00:29:14.137 --> 00:29:20.567
You know he learned how to play the piano melody he was so proud of and I think it was his first experience in a recording studio as well.
00:29:20.567 --> 00:29:27.144
But he from that he's now got songs with millions of streams, millions, millions.
00:29:27.144 --> 00:29:29.776
He had a I think he had a distribution deal as well last year.
00:29:29.776 --> 00:29:32.638
So he did really well and you know all of his fans are organic.
00:29:32.638 --> 00:29:33.619
He's done performances.
00:29:33.619 --> 00:29:48.719
You know he's an 18-year-old kid but in the space of two years, seeing where he was as this small, shy little guy to now he's still shy but very confident on the mic and he understands music so well.
00:29:48.719 --> 00:29:53.959
Such a good lyricist and I use him as inspiration for my other students and how that impacted Beatsora is.
00:29:54.220 --> 00:30:02.196
I felt that if I wasn't there, how would he have had access to the resources to go down this path?
00:30:02.878 --> 00:30:05.666
Because he had no money, he had no insight, he had nothing.
00:30:05.666 --> 00:30:14.807
I saw this pattern emerging with a lot of the kids I was working with and I felt that I can't be in one of these youth centres and these schools and these prisons.
00:30:14.807 --> 00:30:28.435
So I wanted to try and create a platform that allowed people to quickly start creating whatever it is they want to create, without there being this huge financial barrier to do it or legal ramifications of trying to go down the free route.
00:30:28.435 --> 00:30:44.387
And that was really kind of why Beat All was born, more so than anything was just to try to create as close to that experience as possible for other emerging artists that are facing any kind of fear of how do I begin music, how do I start rapping, like, what can I do?
00:30:44.387 --> 00:30:53.641
Seeing the power that those sessions had for him just inspired me just to try and do something about this problem that I saw so frequently with these young people.
00:30:53.641 --> 00:30:56.246
Yeah I I don't know what more I can say.
00:30:56.306 --> 00:31:04.286
That's, it's so proud so you know, I presume he was about 15 16 when he recorded this track.
00:31:04.306 --> 00:31:28.048
Definitely pretty young, right 16, 17, that very pivotal point of a young guy, young man's life, where he's really just trying to figure out who he is I think the emotional maturity or, you could put it another way bravery to address what he does on the track it's not what people want to hear necessarily, or it's not what you think your peers would want to hear from you necessarily.
00:31:28.048 --> 00:31:36.923
You know, just putting myself in the mindset of being that age and you know the lyrics and having that kind of message Was that something that you worked with him on?
00:31:36.923 --> 00:31:39.042
Did that just come out from him?
00:31:39.042 --> 00:31:48.463
And does technology like Beats, Aura or education around this help people tap into a thing they probably might have just ignored before?
00:31:48.756 --> 00:31:52.863
I think the education leg of Beatsora does that more so than the site itself.
00:31:52.863 --> 00:31:57.394
The site is meant to be a tool like anything else, and a tool can be used in any which way.
00:31:57.394 --> 00:31:58.577
So I don't think the site is meant to be, you know, a tool like anything else, and a tool can be used in any which way.
00:31:58.577 --> 00:32:09.625
So I don't think the site inherently inspires the use of positive lyrics, because you can put anything in that lyric generator and you can say anything you want on any of the beats.
00:32:09.625 --> 00:32:14.104
But the education side of the business, uh, yes, definitely like.
00:32:14.104 --> 00:32:24.855
We do try to have a lyric policy and we take deep, deep, deep pride in creating songs that are, I wouldn't say, abstract, but definitely not your traditional.
00:32:24.855 --> 00:32:28.905
Look at me, I'm a bad man kind of thing and there's nothing wrong with?
00:32:28.925 --> 00:32:31.779
that I think you know, when I go to the gym I love listening to those tunes.
00:32:31.779 --> 00:32:33.422
It makes me more like lift this weight.
00:32:33.422 --> 00:32:47.085
But for a young individual, I think it's very important for them to have the kind of experience I did at a young age, and that's not necessarily going into church but being able to be shown that this is not the only way to do music.
00:32:47.085 --> 00:32:58.925
And noah, he, you know he, I already had quite a few accolades at that point through anecdotes, so he trusted what I said and there wasn't much pushback or resistance, you know, but more so it was like it wasn't about anyone else.
00:32:58.925 --> 00:33:00.490
It was about what do you need to say.
00:33:00.490 --> 00:33:04.339
It's not about what other people need, you know, need to hear or want to hear.
00:33:04.540 --> 00:33:05.564
That's not what music is.
00:33:05.564 --> 00:33:08.000
It's not about meant to be about everyone else, it's meant to be about you.
00:33:08.000 --> 00:33:09.707
So what's going on in your life?
00:33:09.707 --> 00:33:15.402
And then it's that reframing of it of yeah, I don't have to just impress everyone else like you don't.
00:33:15.402 --> 00:33:28.961
And then you know, the song got a quarter of a million streams and we released quite a few songs over that period with various individuals and that was by far the highest one, because it was just stripped back a piano and him just talking about this is what I'm going through.
00:33:28.961 --> 00:33:33.343
But to answer your question, I wouldn't say the site itself inherently does that.
00:33:33.343 --> 00:33:44.307
But I'm thankful we've been able to set up education courses and workshops that really try to heavily focus on those, those kind of topics it definitely brings everything full circle.
00:33:44.568 --> 00:33:58.566
so we've kind of talked about you starting music from the love of the performance and inspiration of the music, but also that taking you to a place where you're potentially exposed to you know, different influences that may or may not be positive or negative for you.
00:33:58.566 --> 00:34:05.923
But we've also looked at someone maybe being in a dark place but using music to come out of that and get to a better place.
00:34:05.923 --> 00:34:13.005
There's no binary good, bad, right, wrong in life at all, but yeah, it's interesting to see all that come together.
00:34:13.005 --> 00:34:14.756
It's a difficult thing to navigate.
00:34:15.037 --> 00:34:16.460
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's.
00:34:16.460 --> 00:34:19.315
Yes, it's been very reflective this, this period.
00:34:19.315 --> 00:34:20.842
You know this interview for sure.
00:34:20.842 --> 00:34:45.498
With everything that I'm currently doing it's you don't always have the time to stop and just sit back and reflect like this, but I would say, yeah, it is a a culmination of my own experiences, uh, my own values and and the struggles that I've seen other people fall into, that I could very easily have seen myself fall into had someone not given me the time to, you know, to show me there was more to music than what I think is shown on TikTok and YouTube for sure.
00:34:45.699 --> 00:34:56.539
I hope that the company you know inspires thousands, hundreds of thousands of emerging artists in the future to go out and make music and you know it doesn't financially destroy them to do so.
00:34:56.840 --> 00:35:08.880
My and my goal is is to hope that there will be even you know, even one I mean, there's already been some, which is great because we're seeing them on the trust pilot reviews people getting 50 000 streams from using beats or beats and it's like there you go.
00:35:09.021 --> 00:35:14.097
It cost you 9.99, you know, go go, it shouldn't be super expensive.
00:35:14.097 --> 00:35:30.380
I don't think enough emphasis is put on those people, on those people that have very, very little, where it's like the lower class and the people at the bottom of the people, that ones that people just don't really care much about, or maybe they care, but you know enough to actually do something about it.
00:35:30.380 --> 00:35:53.891
You know that's a very, very different story, and I know that I could have been one of those people, and I was one of those people at a very, very young age, with the way that I grew up and had it not been for certain you know, youth centers and key individuals that guided me through my process, from going to school with holes in my shoes to performing across the world and now owning my own tech company.
00:35:53.891 --> 00:36:06.943
There were many, many individuals and resources put in place specifically to help people that were in my position at that point in time, and I hope that Beatsora can be the exact same thing for many other emerging artists to come.
00:36:07.103 --> 00:36:09.498
I think that's the perfect place to wrap things up.
00:36:09.498 --> 00:36:11.081
So thanks for that.
00:36:11.081 --> 00:36:12.204
That's a really great conclusion.
00:36:12.204 --> 00:36:19.103
Before we do so, can you let us know you know where can we go to find out more about Beatsora, Beatsora is the easiest place is b-e-a-t-s-o-r-a.
00:36:19.103 --> 00:36:22.710
com.
00:36:23.210 --> 00:36:24.432
Um, it's the same on instagram.
00:36:24.432 --> 00:36:25.414
It's the same on tiktok.
00:36:25.414 --> 00:36:26.500
It's the same on linkedin.
00:36:26.500 --> 00:36:28.007
It's nice and easy, just Beatsora.
00:36:28.007 --> 00:36:29.012
Check out the site.
00:36:29.012 --> 00:36:29.213
You know.
00:36:29.213 --> 00:36:31.257
There's lots of free things on there for people to use.
00:36:31.257 --> 00:36:34.583
You don't have to pay money, I guess, if you want to see more about myself.
00:36:34.583 --> 00:36:39.237
Anecdote is my stage name, you know which?
00:36:39.237 --> 00:36:46.304
Unfortunately, it did so well that I'm not able to change, so A-N-I-K-D-O-T-E.
00:36:46.304 --> 00:36:51.221
Underscore music is my Instagram, and then Dre Hall everywhere else, like on my LinkedIn, et cetera.
00:36:51.474 --> 00:36:54.786
Dre, it's been a pleasure, it's been enlightening, it's been a journey.
00:36:54.786 --> 00:36:56.300
Thank you for sharing with us.
00:37:02.014 --> 00:37:03.157
Oh, it's been enlightening, it's been a journey.
00:37:03.157 --> 00:37:03.820
Thank you for sharing with us.
00:37:03.820 --> 00:37:04.702
Oh, thank you for giving me the space.
00:37:04.702 --> 00:37:05.905
It's been, um, yeah, it's been.
00:37:05.905 --> 00:37:06.367
It's been very nice.
00:37:06.367 --> 00:37:07.409
This has been, this has been amazing actually.
00:37:07.409 --> 00:37:09.094
Thank you for what you're doing as well to provide this space for people.
00:37:09.094 --> 00:37:09.315
Thank you.