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

Mantiz, appreciate you joining us today. What do you think it takes to be successful?

Many people will tell you that you have to hustle your way to success, and that’s very true. You have to find not only your niche, but your audience to service. But sometimes, it’s literally about your faith and a divine vision. Having plans and sticking to them make the most sense, but the majority of all our plans ultimately depend upon things we have no concrete control over. Everyday, millions of business owners and entrepreneurs go out and “seize the day” without ever thanking The Creator for allowing them to see it.

Some may read this and be inspired, others may feel this isn’t the place for it. But my personal testimony is all I stand on as a business owner and entrepreneur in an industry that’s controlled by agendas and nepotism. We all go into business for ourselves to provide for our families and to free ourselves from corporate domination, but the hard times are what simply makes or breaks us. I’ve been blessed to accomplish nearly everything I told myself as a child I would, but even those milestones don’t make you or your business successful.

I’ve been working as an audio engineer for close to 20 years now, and I know exactly how to market myself for it to be a lucrative occupation. I understand advertising and I know I can place myself in front of potential customers with ease. But after my son was born at the beginning of the pandemic, like many others I saw a significant decline in frequency. I didn’t lose many clients, but some of my most productive clients fell back from making music and that’s considered a loss.

Still, my Faith is the only thing I can credit for carrying me, even to this very moment telling you this. I’ve had the opportunity of attending The Grammy Awards this year while I was in the worst financial situation I could be in, in a big city with no one who could help me. While I was in town, connection after connection was built. I was placed in rooms where my skills could advance me, and not just good conversation saying “the right things”. I was able to produce for major label artists in person, and not play the email game. It takes approximately four and a half hours to tell my Grammy weekend story in detail, so I won’t do it here. But I can say, that even as prepared as I made myself, I was challenged consistently just getting there and making it back home to my family. I believe that if I gave up because things didn’t go the way I planned them, I’d be in serious financial ruin right now instead of doing this interview.

Trusting God provides the opportunities, no matter how much we apply ourselves. In all things, Faith will get you through.

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?

I’m Mantiz, and I do everything in music.

I’m from a small farm town in South Carolina called Elgin, right outside the capital city of Columbia. I didn’t really have a choice about getting into the industry coming from a musical family. I grew up in the “Like Mike” 90s, so of course I wanted to play basketball and go to the league.

When that didn’t work out, music had already been taking place for me. I played piano and drums in church, and did a lot of traveling in and out of state as a musician. According to my parents, I was singing before I could talk, so becoming a performer was right on course. I’m the youngest of the first generation of cousins/grandchildren on my mother’s side of the family, so I followed my older cousins a lot and they would have me rapping songs to the point I started writing in elementary school. Before I let go of my hoop dreams in middle school (heartbroken from not making the team), I took band and picked up trombone and trumpet, learning to properly read sheet music which led to me becoming a composer.

I owned an Acer Aspire desktop with Windows 95 on it and a stock software application called Sound Recorder. Many musicians reading this know exactly what I’m speaking about. It was the most absolute terrible sound quality you could produce on a computer at the time without professional equipment, but it was my introduction to audio engineering. My father’s younger brother was the musical prodigy of the family. He’s a singer and producer still thriving today. He influenced and even taught drums and piano to all of my cousins and myself. His studio was the first studio I’d ever been in, and became my school. He was using analog equipment with the large mixing boards and ADAT machines that would record your music on VHS tapes. This particular place is what made me go down my path. I would borrow his equipment catalogs to sign up on the mailing list, knowing I had absolutely no money to buy anything in between the pages. But this fed my ambition.

Before long, the Windows 95 Acer was old and the new Compaq Presario with Windows 2000 was my new computer. I had purchased an audio card that was created for computer gamers, and a small 5.1 surround sound speaker set that even included a small subwoofer. I’m actually laughing as I reminisce about this because of how badly I’m aging myself, I hope it makes you smile as well. I had saved up money from traveling with my uncle, father and grandfather in our family group, and used that money to buy my first microphone (and all the audio accessories) from Radio Shack. This made using the Sound Recorder program improve somewhat, but not enough to make a fan out of a stranger. This is when my uncle told me about Pro Tools.

Pro Tools is a digital audio workstation software that provides a full range of capabilities in music production. It has long been referred to as the industry standard of recording and producing audio. When I first learned of them, technology wasn’t as advanced and available to the public as it is today. In order to own Pro Tools, you would have to purchase their sound card hardware as it matched with the software, and never the software independently. Of course, I couldn’t afford what they were asking for it, being in the 8th grade. But I found a much cheaper software from Circuit City called MAGIX and finally had my first studio.

All of this allowed me to hone my skills as a full musician. My bedroom had literally no space whatsoever between a drumset, a keyboard, and computer setup in it. I started recording freestyles to instrumentals, and making mixtapes while sneaking in a few of my recordings as early unofficial remixes between some of the biggest hits in music. I sold a good handful in high school, creating my first fan base. But I knew I would need original material if I thought about making money from this. This is what led me to becoming a producer.

I know that was a lot, but I said it all to say I’ve put my 10,000 hours in over at least ten times. My passion for music thrives because of my desire to be my best. I’ve gone on to be a critically acclaimed recording artist, an RIAA Platinum-certified and Billboard charting producer, and a well respected musician and engineer. My production company, The Block Symphony, was established to be the in-house production team for my label, R Dot Entertainment. I founded and serve as CEO of both, and we are open for business looking for more songwriters and producers to fit the team. We provide any and everything needed to turn an idea into something any artist or creative can be proud of.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

I started working as an engineer at RISE Recording Studios in Columbia while recording on my setup at home. This allowed me to get hands-on experience with industry level equipment. After RISE, I began working for Quantum Beats Studios, also in Columbia. This is where my first independent clientele started. I was able to record many independent artists from the city, while building my artistry simultaneously. While at Quantum, I produced some of the most notable songs of my career and secured radio spins and a bubbling fan base.

After Quantum, I relocated to Atlanta for a few years and used my computer setup as a mobile studio. I would travel with my laptop, a small microphone stand, some small 5 inch studio monitors, two pairs of headphones, and small table that I could collapse and fit in my trunk or backseat. After Atlanta, I came back to Columbia and continued with my mobile studio services. I was still recording and releasing albums of my own the entire time.

In 2014, I met and developed a brotherhood with producer JetsonMade, and we started making music together. In 2019 while in my living room, we made the beats that would become “Fashion Week” by Rico Nasty and “GOSPEL” for DaBaby. Landing these placements funded my equipment upgrade, and I was able to complete my production studio, The Block Symphony.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Simply put, results. It’s a skill within itself to sell what you do to people who may or may not know about, care about, or desire your services. Once you find people who are looking for what you provide, you have to deliver what they believe they bought from you. So in my line of work, I’m very transparent about quality and the possibility of a lack thereof, and go as far as I can to have solutions. In an honest self-evaluation, I can say that I’m very much a perfectionist. But I understand the hard work that goes into making something like the music industry work for those it wasn’t designed to benefit.

I read books and articles, watch thousands of hours of masterclass videos, and network in all aspects of the industry with as many other professionals as possible to build my knowledge base, and ultimately solidify my expertise. But that knowledge and expertise absolutely has to turn over into pleasant results for the consumer.

Contact Info:

• Website: ThisIsMantiz.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/thisismantiz
• Facebook: facebook.com/officialmantiz
• Linkedin: Jay Mantiz McCorkle
• Twitter: twitter.com/mantiz186
• Youtube: youtube.com/mantiz
• Other: mantiz.bandcamp.com

Image Credits
Aaron Smalls Photograhpy J. Andre Photography