Chicago Music Producers

Chicago, nested along the great lake Michigan has one of the strongest musical histories that can compete with any city.

Until Kanye West, Chicago hasn't really received any notoriety for its musical producers. Which is a shame because Chicago is the home of Mike Dunn, Glen Underground and the Strickly Jazz Unit, Fast Eddie, the Molemen, NO I.D., 1120, and countless others who have laid some of the most classic house and hip hop tracks down. Needless to say, there is some difficulty being a music producer from Chicago.

For many of us, there are a variety of musical influences in our lives that shape what we like and create today. However, it is hard to be from Chicago and not listen to House music. I remember days of listening to WBMX and the crazy mixes although I cannot claim to be a House head because I was the kid that was listening to every single music that was out there. From what i'm told and hear from big name producers that is key to becoming a successful producer. Here are a few tips from me:

1. Listen to everything-some of your favorite tracks of all time are samples by artist nobody probably remembers let alone even know of. Example, how many people are well aquainted with the artist Kanye sampled in Jesus Walks? What about Xplosive by Dr. Dre?
2. Know your industry: crowd or target audience/know what's popular
3. Learn to DJ-This is important because it will help you find grooves and stuff that works musically. Also its important for your timing, and what sounds you use. You can have the best and most rare sample ever but if you have the sounds of a Casio from 1988 you probably won't go far.
4. Be you: get inspired but don't bite! Its perfectly fine to throw on some J Dilla, Rza, Dr. Dre or who ever to get you inspired to make music but don't get to the point where you just steal their ideas and steal their style. It always suprises me as dissappointing as it may be, when I hear a track on the radio that i've sampled before; it just lets me know to continue to do what I do and when my platform presents itself, i'll be ready.
5. Learn an instrument or at least how to read music. Obvious reasons...
6. Update your equipment when you grow out of your old equipment.


Question of the day; who's making hotter music in Chicago; north side, south side or the west side?