Just a few minutes spent on popular beat selling platform BeatStars will reveal the vast amounts of budding music producers trying to break through into the market; and there are only so many major artists who need beats. How does a new producer with no credits to their name, limited funds to invest in promotion and no notoriety manage to get their instrumentals into the hands of established artists who might make use of them…? Enter: Ghostcraft.
Ghostcraft Music are a production house and artist development company, founded in the United Kingdom in early 2018 by ‘dark trap messiah’ LX Xander and transported over to Los Angeles the following year. Alongside LX on the Ghostcraft Team are ‘genius’ King Wizard and industry mogul Oliver ‘Big Papa’ Harvey. Between them, their credits include big time hiphop artists such as Rick Ross, Future & Wiz Khalifa, major outlets like WorldStar, Yahoo! News & The Source and also TV networks including VH1, VICE, BBC & FOX. They’re also Billboard-charting.
“There isn’t really a blueprint for how to break into the production game,” LX Xander tells us. “When you start out, you’re just taking stabs in the dark trying to work out how to get anybody who’s anyone to listen to your beats.”
“We’re trying to offer developing producers a pathway into the industry through collaboration,” says King Wizard. “They collaborate with us on some beats, we send out those collaborations to our network of managers, A&Rs, writers etc. and if anything gets placed with an artist, we just split all the royalties equally.”
“It’s a pretty established route into those inner-industry circles,” continues LX. “It’s just not really something that’s very widely publicized or talked about, unless you’re already in those circles, which is why we wanted to do this article about it – to bring awareness to that pathway in, for those who aren’t in the know.”
Producers send over a selection of audio loops to the Ghostcraft team, who pick out the ones they think will make for a great beat. LX & Wizard then use their skills to transform the loop into an industry quality instrumental, with all the nuance & subtlety required for an artist to be able to cut a record on it.
“There is a very subtle art to making a beat that an artist will actually use,” Xander smiles. “Most producers make their beats sound big and powerful and dramatic. That’s cool but actually, artists want a ton of space in the beat. The instrumental is just a bed for the artist’s vocals to sit on. There’s a reason they used to call them ‘backing tracks’. The beat just creates a feeling; it’s up to the artist to give the feeling context & meaning, through their lyrics.
Beatmakers Matisse Tsoy & Alderman are regular Ghostcraft collaborators, having made several beats with the team already. “They always flip the loop into something super fire,” says Alderman. “They’ve even been helping me to make more sales of my own beats, too.” Matisse is similarly enthusiastic about Ghostcraft’s influence on his music business: “LX & Wiz helped me to nail down my branding as a producer and they’ve gotten our collaborations placed in a variety of projects, including some major publishers. I’m also a rap writer and they’ve had me involved in amazing stuff there too. Now, they’ve put me in a position where I can carry it forward and help newbie producers myself as well.”
Producers can find more information about Ghostcraft at www.ghostcraftmusic.com and can book in collaborations through one of the team. You can find them on Instagram below
Alderman & Matisse Tsoy: