“Without them, there is no music”, launched about the beatmakers Fadily Camara, mistress of ceremonies of the first edition of the Flames, the Victoires du rap et ses currents, who dedicated a prize to these artists of the ‘shadow. Sometimes called “composers” or even “producers”, beatmakers, literally rhythm makers, use their creativity to compose the instrumental part of rap songs, called “prod” or “instru”.
These artists, little known to the general public, are essential in the music industry, only a few rappers compose their own beats, like Jul or Niro. Some make their own productions then send them to the rappers with whom they wish to work. Others collaborate directly with them, in the studio, like Benjay, beatmaker who mainly produced for Damso, but also PLK or Rim’K.
“We’re in the same room so that facilitates the exchange, and then they can also propose their ideas and bring their creativity,” he explains. “From a distance, I find that there are more uncertainties. We send our productions to rappers without knowing under what conditions they will listen to them: sometimes without headphones, having had a bad day, etc. Originally from Seine-et-Marne, Benjay trained alone in beatmaking. First thanks to a game on PlayStation Portable when he was only 12 years old, then via “YouTube tutorials”, practicing on his mother’s computer.
In 2015, aged 18, he made his “first big investment” with the instrumental of the piece Finis-les by rapper Alonzo, whose clip totaled nearly 70 million views on YouTube. Still on the benches of the university, he uses his Crous scholarship to invest in equipment, then ends up giving up his English license in order to capitalize on this first success.
In beatmaking, you don’t need a diploma: you hone your skills “on the job” because “it’s mainly by practicing that you progress,” he says. “The Internet is a real gold mine of information,” adds Mao Maker, Youtuber who posts tutorials allowing those who wish to train for free in this art. This former optician, who practiced for “ten years” on the family computer, wants to “democratize beatmaking”.
“What I want above all is to remove the blockage that you can have at the start by saying to yourself I don’t have the gear or I don’t know how to do, all these things that have blocked me for a long time”, specifies she.
Interest in beatmaking has grown tremendously in recent years as a direct result of the growing popularity of rap. “The digitization of musical creation tools, the development of easy-to-access and increasingly sophisticated beatmaking software, but also the virtuous circle in which rap has been since streaming was taken into account by the SNEP (Syndicat national de the phonographic edition, editor’s note) in 2016, all this creates a snowball effect which pushes more and more people to get started”, analyzes the journalist Raphaël Da Cruz, specialist in rap and more particularly in beatmaking.
“But that makes it a very competitive industry, similar to a basket of crabs. You have to struggle to refine your style and stand out,” he insists. Although beatmakers are more exposed today than their predecessors were in the 2000s and 2010s, in particular thanks to social networks, they remain very little known to the general public.
Players in the music industry, however, seek to put them more in the spotlight. Invited to festivals, honored at ceremonies… Programs are even entirely devoted to them in the specialized media, such as “La Prod” on Mouv’ or “BPM” on Booska-P. “Even if some find it difficult to recognize it, they are musicians”, underlines Raphaël Da Cruz, presenter of these two programs. The Flames, they rewarded Tarik Azzouz, French whose talent is solicited as far as the United States by Jay-Z, DJ Khaled or even Lil Wayne.
