Get the first interview exclusive of Prashant- the Spotify beat maker.
Making music never seemed to be in Prashant’s plan. Although Prashant has always had a passion for listening- cutting holes to wire up his sweatshirts to listen during High School classes- science has always been his primary focus. While majoring in biochemistry in college, Prashant happened upon music production by what seemed like fate. His freshman college dorm room is the birthplace of Prashant’s first exposure to music production, after a friend shared a track he made on Garageband. Intrigued by creating beats himself, Prashant started playing around with the Garageband music creation software. As Prashant’s interest quickly grew, he found that he wanted to take his basic knowledge to the next level, installing a bootleg version of FL studio to get him there. Sitting on the bus, on his way home for holiday break is where Prashant first opened the software and thought to himself “wow, now that’s a lot of buttons”
Prashant has surely come a long way from unknown switches and toggles to audio engineering and producing music in the hip hop, pop, R&B, and EDM genres, clocking in over five years now. His journey to becoming a self-taught producer has been the accumulation of years of hard work. For two summers, Prashant mentions that he made “hot trash,” however this didn’t stop him from spending hours in his dorm creating beats. Prashant made it a point to make as much music as possible during any free time that he had, whether it be during breaks in his internships at the lab or even during class.
It was around his Junior year in college that Prashant started to take his music production more seriously, as he began publishing his music online. Prashant cites inspiration from artists that he listened to growing up, such as Linkin Park, The Cure, and Seal as much as his current muses like Young Thug, Lil Uzi Vert, SAINt JHN, and Future. Every 3 to 6 months, Prashant made sure to publish the best music that he could make at the time. In doing so, Prashant was able to tangibly see his growth as an artist. Before doing this, Prashant mentions that felt he was in a vacuum, without any outside references to how much he had learned over time. And this is one of Prashant’s favorite aspects of being an audio engineer and music producer- seeing the evolution of his craft over time. This also allowed him to see how valuable the time and effort he put into learning, and how it adds up to a real payoff in the sound he creates. What else does Prashant love about doing this work?
“Every now and then you get a beat that you know is going to change some things,” cites Prashant, which is just what happened last year.
A particular beat that Prashant made in class one day happened to make its way onto a beat tape that he released on Spotify. This wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, and to him it seemed like just another beat made like clockwork. While he thought that the beat was O.K., six months later it got picked up and put on a Spotify playlist with over 150,000 monthly listeners. Being featured on one playlist, turned into being featured on many playlists and it just snowballed from there. When Prashant hit a personal milestone of 100,000 streams, he humbly doubted the possibility of reaching half a million streams. Soon, Prashant hit this milestone too, and then hit the 1 million stream mark, a feat he never dreamed possible. Prashant’s increasing popularity on Spotify has opened many doors for him, as he has been able to work with new artists and on a slew of new projects.
Prashant’s advice for artists and producers aiming to make it big in the music industry is to work hard. “There are no shortcuts to accumulating 1000 hours in the studio and until you experience something with your own two hands, you won’t appreciate that lesson of learning.” Prashant also warns not to be too hard on yourself and your progress as an artist. “You have to fall in love with the process, the journey more than the destination. You have to learn to appreciate the little moments, because if you don’t appreciate those, you won’t be able to appreciate the bigger moments. They will be cool for a moment. But it won’t last long. The moments are only made up of how much value you assign to them,” the reason that Prashant has always made it a point to practice gratefulness with every coming achievement. When he got picked up by the Spotify playlists, he had 24 monthly listeners at the time and was excited to even have that many people listening to his music after not releasing any new material in months.
Prashant notes that the best advice he has received himself was from his mentor who said to him “whatever music you are making, but don’t make it for who is listening now, make it for someone listening in 3 years. Play the long game,” which has always stuck with him since. One of the reasons Prashant has been so proficient at what he does is because he has taken a considerable amount of time making beats and putting out his best music, believing the first impressions are paramount in the industry. “You only get that curious click from a listener once,” Prashant says.
In regards to the future, Prashant has a lot of exciting projects that he is working on. As of late, Prashant is less worried about what others think and more worried about whether he likes it and if he is excited about the sound. “2020 was a lot of leg work and now I have a lot of music to release. Give me time and I am a dangerous man” Prashant notes. In 2020 alone he made over 240 beats, yet this year he is focusing more on making some special beats for his listeners.
“A lot can change in a year,”
Prashant says, reflecting on just one year ago when he only had 24 monthly listeners, “I can’t wait to look back on this year to see what more has changed”.
Ursula D. 