We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Joseph Brown. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Joseph below.

Joseph, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

My newest album ‘Inner Exodus’ is coming out soon. It’s the deepest project I have ever worked on. A lot of those songs were written in a time where I was going through a depressive state. While I was in it, I was just writing songs that helped me realize insecurities and pain I had and how I was coping with them in unhealthy ways. This album is filled with my best songs that I wrote in this season, following a story line that tells about me going into a state of depression, realizing things about myself and my beliefs with God, and coming out with revelations and a new level of faith in God.

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 Joseph Brown and I go by the brand name of ’99 APEX’, I am a Christian Artist, Producer, and Audio Engineer that has worked with all types of artists from independent to ones backed by major labels. A few people that I have worked with are, Tommee Profitt, Mac Powell, Michael W. Smith, etc.

I started developing my craft in Producing when I was in 10th grade. I was in a high school class called ‘Music Technology I’ where I tried to learn how to create 808s and work on a digital audio workstation called ‘Mixcraft’. Eventually me and a few of my friends started rapping over our own beats and that launched me into becoming an artist. 4 years later I graduated high school from and was a sophomore in college pursuing a music degree. In the spring semester of that year I interned at Reach Records and started to develop in the craft as an audio engineer. I was still rapping and still producing at the time, so I ended up having 3 different hats on whenever I started receiving my first set of clients in the year of 2019. In the last couple of years in college, I started doing a few remix competitions with some friends that ended up getting us placements with Michael W. Smith, Mac Powell, and eventually got us our first Capital Records release with Tommee Profitt. And of course, the rest is history.

As an artist, I provide Christian Hip Hop and R&B music giving a viewpoint of Godly young men who are either in college or have just come out of college. With all of the noise in the world talking about toxic men and pretty much giving them the most attention, there are Men of God who are young and trying their best to improve in their faith and discipline. There are other men like me who are trying to navigate a world filled with assumptions and hatred towards us and it leaves a lot of men with a lack of community. I hope that fans of my music will be able to see a perspective that does not get a lot of recognition and stop projecting negative thoughts and assumptions on men who are simply trying. And for the men who are my age that are trying, I hope they recognize that they are not alone in this. I hope that my music relates to them and helps them come out of the pressure, the negative thoughts, and the pain they carry.

What makes me unique is when I am not creating my own music, I am helping other artists with the same cause on their music. Problems that I solve for artists require me to be a producer and an engineer. A lot of times artists will come to me with a voice memo of a hook that they have in mind, I find the key that they are singing in and I start producing from there. Mixing and Mastering services are what I provide for artists as well. This helps the artists get their music to a professional quality that competes with the current market. Some artists I just produce for, some I work with from start to finish, and some artists I am receiving the files of their songs to Mix and Master. For whatever stage an artist is in with the creation of their music, I have made myself a valuable asset to their team.

What I am most proud of is the community that I have built with this journey, I have built a community where Christian men and women alike feel appreciated, they feel like there is unity in a way that they might not have experienced before, and they start opening up to true discipleship. I see growth and Godly unity in my community of people and that’s something that I am proud of more than an accolade or a stream count.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

Producing was always the easiest thing to get clientele on. You just post your beats up on social medias, contact people in their DMs and go on live streams to making beats. But when it came to mixing and mastering, I started doing my first mixes for clients free. That way a lot of clients were ok with giving me a shot and I when I did a great job they were my clients from then on! That usually is way riskier because each artist could require more or less work but I did it because I was also learning at the same time. So for me it was still a win/win situation because it gave me practice while also giving me real loyal clients when I did a great job.

How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?

This is a good question especially for music. Not all artists are always making music, so there will be times where you have “dead seasons” and times where everybody wants their music to get done in a week haha. But one thing is for sure, social interaction is key. It’s not too much about being in their face all the time like how it is with consumers though. With artists, the more they can trust, and enjoy hanging out with you, the more you will find them coming back with their music. And sometimes, you’ll see them coming back ready to create more music. Music is about inspiration and passion. That being said, you don’t want to be the guy who is good (or bad) at his craft and be the vibe killer of the sessions. You want to be a big part of the artist being inspired.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/99_APEX
• Instagram: @99.apex_music
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/99.apexmusic
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseph-brown-7329981b2/
• Twitter: @99APEX1