I have to be real with everyone. How Will I Make It came to be because I finally wanted to do something with myself, not because I genuinely planned it as a project from the very beginning. I basically put some tracks together that already existed, but had never been heard by anyone because I was tired of sitting around and doing nothing.

Before I decided to release How Will I Make It, I had around 60+ beats in my “catalog” just sitting there. I say catalog with quotes because it’s not really a catalog if I’m not doing anything with it. I really wanted to work with artists and “make moves” but nothing ever materialized. It’s already hard enough working over the internet with people, but I was getting impatient so I decided to release this small project to answer people who wanted to hear more of my music.

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How Will I Make it is a fitting title. It is genuinely how I feel. Every track title and the feeling of each beat is designed to match the title of the album. Despite it being a project I put together at the last minute, there is still a lot of meaning in it.

In fact, the title How Will I Make It is the only thing that is not new. I originally wanted to make a project with this name as a mixtape and have it contain around 30+ beats or so, but I decided against that. I could easily do such a project, but I felt I need to have more control over my sound going forward. Quality over quantity. Even though this release felt rushed to me personally, I still wanted to make sure I picked tracks that had a feeling and flow that is worth listening to.

Be The One

Since I have very little time between work, school, and music I listened to the sample for this track during my commute to work. It is an Al Green sample, but I will not say which track. I wonder if other people who make beats go through the same thing, but it took me about a week to build the confidence to even try to work with the sample. Sometimes I get truly scared and intimidated to even approach a sample because I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I can make the beat. Anyways, I finally sat down  one day and started working on the track and this is what came out. It was almost a relief to finish this track.

How Real

This is a direct result of my love for the song by Median and produced by 9th Wonder, “How Big Is Your World?” I love that track and I have always wanted to make something similar in feeling. Whether or not that is true is up to you and not me, but I tried to make this beat in the same format but using my own techniques. The sample is a Motown track and I forgot the name, but I would like to see if anybody can figure it out for me!

A Moment

A good friend of mine stayed over one night and the next morning he was using my computer before we were about to go eat and he started playing this Jackson 5 sample. I was literally stepping out of the shower and then I heard this playing and asked him “What is this!?!” I hadn’t heard the track before (just when you think you’ve heard it all…) but I wanted to sample it immediately. In a way, that is how hip hop ruins you. I can still appreciate tracks for what they are but I can’t get rid of my sampling instinct. I didn’t have any records so I just ripped it from YouTube and made the beat that morning before we went out to get ramen. Later that week I also had made a remix to 2pac – Dear Mama using this beat and it fit PERFECTLY, but I won’t release it because I can’t mix the vocals in properly.

Aim High

I actually made this track as I was trying to remix “Sunday” by 9th Wonder. It’s impossible to find Little Brother acapellas and I wanted to remix a 9th Wonder track, but “Sunday” was the only acapella I could find. This beat was the only beat I had made that fit Sunday. I even bought the acapella and everything, but I just couldn’t match it up exactly because of the singing.

I Don’t Mind

I made this beat right before class which resulted in me being late. Sometimes I challenge myself and right before I have to leave for work or class I will try and see if I can make a beat in a short amount of time – like 10 minutes. From the standpoint of difficulty, it wasn’t hard to make at all. Anybody can do it. I just really enjoy the feeling of the strings. I would love to hear an artist over this one day.

A Chance

Another “right before class” beat. There isn’t much else to say about it.

Wondering Why

I made this beat one morning and it actually shocked me how it turned out. What I did was sample a few parts of a track that stood out to me, put it in FL, made some drums, and just played the chops straight through exactly how you hear it. That is all. It literally took me less than 5 minutes and it shocked me the way everything fell together. This is my favorite track off of How Will I Make It because the feeling is very hard to pinpoint. It can feel any way depending on the listener.

Feeling Again

I think my biggest influence for this beat would have to be Kanye West. I love how Kanye formatted his beats when he was starting out, which was probably a result of his influence from No I.D. When I made this beat, that’s all I was trying to do. Just see if I can do it too. I notice nowadays that 9th Wonder uses this technique a lot too, but I remember Kanye really running with it back in the days and making a lot of hit songs.

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