As anyone who dabbles in beats knows, stealing tracks and not crediting the producers who made them has become a real problem in Hip Hop. Actually, as !llmind states, it's always been a problem. In a recent interview, the prolific Hip Hop producer explains why some producers get stiffed in that regard.
"I'm blessed to be able to say that it doesn't happen to me anymore, but we've all gone through it," He says during a talk with DJ Booth. "I think a lot of it has to do with that, as a producer, you don't have a real relationship with the artist you are creating with and that's due to the fact that you're e-mailing beats. The most important relationship you can curate with someone is directly with the artist. It's not with the A&R, it's not with their manager. You need to have a direct relationship, a working relationship with the artist you are working with."
A lot of the times, the problem is with indie artists who haven't yet aligned themselves with a studio, whom more or less attempt to properly credit artists out of litigious fear.
"A lot of times, up-and-coming producers don't get credit because the guys on the other side just don't care. The artists don't care," !llmind says. "For all you know they don't even know what your name is or probably forgot your name and the A&R's working in-between are juggling a million things. You are probably not getting paid much money and if it's a mixtape placement, you probably aren't getting paid anything so you are left in the dark. You did the beat, but you're still a stranger. They aren't gonna go that extra mile to do you any favors because they simply don't care about you. So that's the difference between having a real, true working relationship with an artist as opposed to being a beat maker and e-mailing your shit out, getting a placement, and getting pissed off you didn't get credit."
Despite this rampant problem, !llmind sees hope for the future for producers and their craft given the new tech that's being created.
"I think it's headed in an awesome direction," he says. "I think technology has allowed us to do things we couldn't do back in the day, as early as ten years ago. Technology is just so advanced now and things are sounding more realistic. Obviously, humans feel with human instruments and live instrumentation; you can't duplicate that, but I think the advancements in technology are really helping us as producers. I think we all need to embrace that, be proud of that and continue to feed into it so it can grow more."
!llmind is one of the brightest new producers to grace the game and we look forward to more production from him. Check out his awesome remix to Jay-Z's "Picasso Baby," with a Biggie verse thrown in on the track.
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