We recently connected with Ernie Murana and have shared our conversation below.

Ernie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

I’ve actually always been in love with music from a really early age. My uncle used to watch me when I was little and he would always have BET or MTV on and we would just sit and watch music videos all day lol. That’s when I discovered my two all time favorite artists Chris Brown and Kanye West. Then years later when I got to middle school I would always download apps and make like dance/electronic type beats cause at the time I was listening to a lot of dj blend lol if you know you know, but I eventually stopped until my junior year of high school. I was in math class and I seen this kid playing piano on his phone and I asked him what it was and he told me “it’s called garage band”, so I downloaded it on my phone and I was hooked I would be on my phone all day just makin beats but then again I stopped. Now my senior year comes around it’s late 2018 and I just had a breakup with a girl I was with for two years, I was just super depressed and I lost myself but then one day I was just like “you know what being sad and feelin sorry for myself isn’t gonna do anything for me” and so I decided to just go after my music dreams, I asked my mom if she could get me a laptop and she did (shoutout to my mom for always bein my #1 supporter). That night I got home, I downloaded everything I needed and I carried that laptop with me everywhere I would leave my books at home and just bring my laptop and headphones to school. I would make beats in class, nutrition break, lunch, and when I got home I would stay up late makin beats and repeat it the next day. Even though I was trash at first, I didn’t let myself give up cause we all start somewhere and how far you go with it depends on when you quit. So I stuck with it and I graduated high school and I’m grinding all day makin beats and uploading to SoundCloud and I still wasn’t getting the views I thought I would. Then like 2 months later I see my neighbor who’s 2 years younger than I am and we start talkin and he tells me he raps and I’m like well I make beats lol and I had also just bought recording equipment. So one day him and his homie came over and they were like “have you ever made a west coast type beat?”, and I was like “no let me hear something” so they play a Mike sherm song and they were like “if you can make something like that it would be perfect” and I said “bet”. So they dip out to the store and I call them and I’m like “I’m done” and I played the beat and they came right back and they recorded the song. After they finished I was like “this is gonna be the most played song you guys have” and they were like “you think so?”and I was like “for sure gonna get 10k plays at least”.Then they teased it on Snapchat and it was goin crazyyy everyone kept asking to drop it and people were askin who made the beat and it was just dope, then when they dropped it everyday it was getting 300-500 plays a day and right now the song is at 251.8k views. The song is called ‘runnin Laps’ by Jr Trapz ft SosaTreyz for those of you that want to listen to it lol. The message of my story is to basically say that consistency is key, if you really wanna accomplish something you have to go all out and work and grind to make it happen, don’t feel discouraged because you might not be doin as good as other people or you just think that you’re not good enough cause if I would’ve stopped when I felt discouraged for not getting views on my beats I would’ve never had the opportunity to make the song that got my name out there. If you made it this far thank you for takin the time to read this I appreciate it so much and remember that everything that is meant for you will be for you when the time is right.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Ernie Murana aka FatBoyonDaTrack I’m a producer from San Diego specifically National City, I am 21 years old and I am also a barber lol. Some of these questions I answered already my bad lol, but something that separates me from the others would be that I’m original I don’t like to try and make beats like other producers I like to make beats like FatBoyonDaTrack and I’m not saying I don’t get inspired by other producers at all I’m just sayin I flip things in my own way and have my own bounce and I feel like a lot of producers just kinda make stuff that sounds like someone else’s cause it worked for that producer but not everything that works for someone else doesn’t mean it’ll work for you so my advice for any new producers just try and be as original as possible it’s cool to get inspired by someone else’s work but figure out a way to add your own bounce to it. Something I’m most proud of is when I had a beat play on the radio it was for a barber competition announcement and they used my beat in the background so that was pretty dope and I was only a couple months into making beats.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

What I think helped me is the way I interact with the people who support me like on my YouTube I reply to every comment and thank them for the support or whenever someone uses a beat of mine I repost it to my Instagram to help them get some more exposure.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

A book that really changed my look on everything is called “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho. There’s a story in the book that talks about how this guy was digging for days trying to find this huge diamond that is supposedly somewhere in the ground and he gets really frustrated and just gives up and then the next day a guy arrives also looking for the diamond and finds it. So everything i do I think back to that story for example with my beats sometimes I don’t feel like makin beats but then I’m like well what if today is the day I make the beat that will change my life and it just motivates me to keep goin cause you never know when you’ll find your diamond but if you give up you’ll never get it.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: fatboyondatrack_