Brandon Le (12) clicks furiously, tabs and bars swirling around his computer  screen. 23 minutes later, Le clicks the play button. A playful synthesizer sweetly calls out as pulsing 808s and high-hats punctate downbeats.

Le was introduced to music production in the eighth grade after attempting to recreate the beat of “Gucci Gang,” by Lil Pump, on a whim. He continued to play around with beat-making on the free production software GarageBand but later moved to a more complex program called FL Studio due to its increased capabilities..

From there, Le began to explore the possibilities of production, drawing inspiration from whatever music was around him.

“I’ll be listening to some music on my way home and let Spotify shuffle through random selections of songs and find a vibe or something in the song that I like,” Le said. “I also found various SoundCloud rappers and producers through offhand recommendations and found influence through those too.”

After a period of free-flow creating, Le decided to dedicate more time to growing his brand. He began creating and posting “type” beats, or tracks that are styled similarly to beats used by popular rappers, on YouTube. These beats tend to attract a large demographic of younger, less established rappers who don’t have access to in-person producers. Around this time, Le also adopted the alias “warheart,” the name of his latest track at the time. 

The majority of Le’s beats are of the PluggnB genre, characterized by heavy bass sounds, piercing percussion, and dreamlike synthesizer melodies. He regularly produces PluggnB tracks, posting new music to his YouTube channel every day.

“Simple beats can take 20 minutes to crank out,” Le said. “Something more complex that you’re probably not going to hear any artist rap over might take an hour. I usually tend toward these simpler beats in order to maintain my daily uploads.”

Le’s consistency has certainly played a significant role in his growth in popularity with 10,000 followers on Instagram and over 7,000 on YouTube. Still, Le attributes a large portion of his success to the network he grew over the years in the industry.

“I think succeeding in growing your name is more dependent on connections and less on your actual skill,” Le said. “They always say ‘It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.’ You can be a really skilled producer but if you don’t know how to connect with other people and genuinely build relationships you’re not going to get anywhere. I definitely could be more successful if I put more effort into networking but right now that isn’t my focus.”

Producers generally connect with other producers through beat collaborations.

“A beat will have two parts: a melody and drums,” Le said. “When two producers collaborate, one person only focuses on the melody while the other does the drums. Usually, the smaller producer reaches out to a bigger producer with a finished melody, since the melody is more difficult and time-consuming to make, and asks the bigger producer to finish the drums.”

However, the oversaturation of the music production industry breeds a cutthroat culture, causing Le to be wary of his peers’ ulterior motives. 

“There’s a lot of people who just want to use you as a stepping stone—about half of the producers that reach out will try to use you for your name,” Le said. “People will literally DM me and be like “I’m gonna send you this. When you finish it, could you please send it to this guy?” At that point, you can already tell they just want your name [to be attached to their track] to gain publicity.”

Le, however, found refuge in a producer collective, or organization of producers who frequently collaborate and cross-promote one another. In May 2021, Le, along with five other up-and-coming artists, were reached out to by producer manosrevenge to form a collective named Ivory. 

“When I first joined [Ivory], I was still a pretty small guy but the other producers helped me out a lot,” Le said. “Over time, we’ve grown together and now are working with bigger artists which is kind of crazy to see.”

Members of Ivory have worked with several big-ticket artists despite Ivory’s short lifetime, like Lil Tecca, Trippie Redd, Wiz Khalifa, Lil Yachty, and PnB Rock.

Le was able to land a beat with platinum-selling rapper Trippie Redd, though the finished song has yet to release, as a result of his producer network he’s grown over time.

“K Suave, a rapper who I and many other guys in Ivory have worked with in the past is really tapped into the rap circle,” Le said. “K Suave sometimes asks us to send beats when he’s going to a studio session to record. One time, he and Trippie went to the studio, listened to a couple of beats that we sent, and picked one of the ones that I had produced. Even though I don’t know Trippie himself, I was still able to work with him through this indirect connection.”

Though proficient in music production, Le admitted that the world of legal processes and monetization can be overwhelming. Depending on the size of the artist who bought the beat, the complexity of these processes heavily varies. 

“If it’s a random kid, I send the beat to them, they record and pay me a small fee If they upload it to Spotify or something like that, and that’s it,” Le said. “But if it’s a signed, established artist, it’s a really complicated process. You have to get in touch with your team, you have to get in touch with their label and lawyers, you have to fill out a bunch of stuff, you have to read contracts. It’s crazy.”

As for now, Le still isn’t sure about his future in music production.

“My plan is [to] get a regular job and major first,” Le said. “I’m probably going to just [make beats] for fun in the meantime but if it goes somewhere I’ll follow it. But in all of my experiences in producing I’ve felt like I’ve made a lot of genuine connections.”