We were lucky to catch up with Arkatech Beatz recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Arkatech thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

What we do differently from the industry is we truly seek to not only develop talent for longevity. We also seek to educate new artists, producers, and songwriters about the music industry. We’ve seen a lot of artist come and go, and the biggest issue is the knowledge gap between what people think the music industry versus what really happens.

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?

Arkatech Beatz (Jugrnaut & Mike Trauma D) are a Grammy nominated music production team from New York City, now based out of Atlanta. When we first started in the music business we were affiliated with Loud Records/Sony Music Entertainment as A&R executives, and have composed, written, and produced music for gold and platinum selling artists such as Big Pun, Nas, Raekwon, Prodigy of Mobb Deep, Mýa, Waka Flocka Flame, Killer Mike, Freddie Gibbs, Jadakiss of The Lox, and many others.

Jugrnaut:
Our start is from a home studio I built in my parents home in the Bronx, NY. Mike and I, are cousins so during that time our parents thought we should hang out more and he came by the house for the weekends. After I found out that he was into music, we started to swap equipment, and records to sample. We used to build tracks every weekend and record with local talent at the time. Things would change when Mike landed an internship at Loud Records.

Mike Trauma D:
During that time I finished a certification at the Institute for Audio Research and started at Loud. Initially I was doing street team promotions, mailroom, and other various positions. I used to play the beats that Jugrnaut and I would make to artists signed at the label. One day Big Punisher heard the track for Capital Punishment, He asked us to lay the track he did the record and we landed the title track “Capital Punishment”. The album would go on to sell 2 million copies and be nominated for best rap album that year. Also Big Pun was under Fat Joe’s Terror Squad Label, and this record would make history as the first latino rapper to go platinum. We were able to land a production deal with Loud Records, and that made things move differently.

Jugrnaut
After the success of Capital Punishment we went on to work with some of the biggest artists in the music industry: Nas, Raekwon, Prodigy of Mobb Deep, Mýa, Waka Flocka Flame, Jadakiss of The Lox, Killer Mike, Shawty Lo, Lil Keed, Freddie Gibbs and various others. The production deal gave us the experience we needed not only as producers but as A&R’s.

What we’re most proud about, is our ability to evolve. We started a long time ago, and its a blessing to be able to still be here working with new artists in an ever changing industry. What we’re able to provide artists now is more information on how to succeed in today’s music industry. We’re able to provide insight on not only how the industry works, but also provide access to a network that new artists typically wouldn’t have access to.

Mike Trauma D:
Today’s producers may not be able to provide the kind of artist development that they would need to survive. So much music is being released and artists are left to figure it out on their own. We have the unique background of working inside of the label, and also crafting the music the label had to market and sell to consumers. So when we work with artists we’re able to add more value than just production.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Jugrnaut:

A main time where we needed to pivot, was when the sound of music moved from a New York dominated sound to the south. Being that we were producers that heavily relied on samples to create, the change to less samples and 808’s was initially a huge challenge. While we were both moderate musicians, it took some time to learn the sound. We used to take trips to Atlanta just to get a feel for the city and it’s music scene, and network. As we spent more time in Atlanta we started to build with artists like Lil Scrappy, Alley Boy and Shawty Lo. We were able to pivot, and move to working with other artists in Atlanta.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

Mike Trauma D: I wish that we spent more time on social media earlier. We were always aware of the socials but used them sparingly. Knowing what we knew with regards to socials, if we had implemented those ideas earlier it would have helped to broaden our fan base. So the advice to new creators, jump into socials and start to build the content you need to educate and entertain your audience.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://arkatechbeatz.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arkatechbeatz/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ArkatechBeatzOnline
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/arkatech-beatz/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ARKATECHBEATZ
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/arkatechbeatz
• Other: Make sure to check us out on the Arkatech Beatz Music Business Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-arkatech-beatz-music-business-podcast/id1652593876