Being a producer is in a lot of ways no different than being a rap artist. Marketing and promotion are just as important. It doesn’t matter if you’re using Fruity Loops, Reason, or Ableton Live; all those dope beats you’re making aren’t going to sell themselves. To illustrate, Lex Luger may have been just like you, making beats day and night, using his laptop and MPC. But what changed his world is that while doing that, he was also sending those beats out to a number of artists on MySpace. Artists that he knew matched his sound and needed beats. Maybe you’re doing the same things and thinking you’re not getting anywhere. If so, consider this, no one knew who Waka Flocka Flame was when Lex Luger was sending him beats. Coincidentally, Waka Flocka Flame made a hit using one of his beats and thus, Lex Luger’s career was born.
- Lex Luger was born Lexus Arnel Lewis in Suffolk, Virginia on March 6, 1991 and currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
- Growing up he played percussion for his church.
- One of his friends from the studio helped come up with the name Lex Luger. Lexus came up with ‘Lex’ and his friend came up with ‘Luger’.
- Lex Luger started making beats by experimenting with drums and learning about measurements, bars, and keys.
- He then started working with turntables and making music using Music Generator on Playstation 2.
- Lex’s uncle sold him a MPC 2000 and afterwards he was introduced to FL Studio (Fruity Loops).
- Lex Luger started sending out beats to well known rappers but no one responded.
- In 2009, Lex Luger met Waka Flocka Flame on MySpace by sending him beats every few days and one day Waka responded.
- After building a relationship with Waka Flocka Flame, he flew Lex out to Atlanta to live. Which was right after Waka was signed to a label and when ‘O Lets Do It’ became a hit.
- After working with Waka, he began making beats for several well known rappers including Lil Scrappy and Gorilla Zoe.
- In 2010, he produced his first hit ‘Hard in the Paint ‘by Waka Flocka Flame.
- After hearing ‘Hard in the Paint’, Spiff of SpiffTV contacted him to get the instrumental track because Rick Ross wanted to do a remix video.
- Lex Luger built a relationship with Rick Ross and produced ‘B.M.F ‘(Blowin’ Money Fast) and ‘MC Hammer’.
- After working with Rick Ross, he started getting considerable amounts of followers on Twitter.
- While in Atlanta, Lex Luger received a call from Kanye West and he flew out to New York to meet with him.
- During his meeting with Kanye, he played several beats for him which included the beat for ‘H.A.M.’.
- Kanye called Lex two weeks later and said he wanted 2 of the 8 beats he left for him.
- When Lex sent Kanye the beats (one being H.A.M.), Kanye did the song and added more to it without Lex hearing it until it was finished.
- Lex Luger has worked with and produced beats for Drake, Slim Thug, Jay Z, Rick Ross, Juicy J, Soulja Boy, Snoop Dogg, Tyga, and Wiz Khalifa.
- He is currently signed to Mizay Entertainment (headed by his mother Debra Antney) and as a producer for Gucci Mane’s group 1017 Brick Squad.
- It has been noted that Lex Luger’s is known for his signature sound by using a style of drum machine programming, with a Roland TR-808, in a fashion for which the machine was never designed.
- In 2011, Lex Luger was nominated for a BET Award for Producer of the Year.
When asked about soundclick and how he promoted himself, here’s what Lex Luger said: “Soundclick? I used to have soundclick. I think I still got that shit. It do good sometimes, sometimes it doesn’t. Cause niggas will take your shit, like niggas you hear on the radio, regular niggas, it doesn’t matter. You gotta copyright your shit. I mean you have to do that shit. Copyright your trademark. Copyright your sign, copyright your name, all that shit. So when that shit come back, you good. As far as promoting myself, I really used MySpace. Then I saw Wiz. I used to follow Wiz a lot. He used to do videos on YouTube and he used to smoke blunts. He used to smoke swishers and shit. He used to do that shit just like he’s doin now and I used to watch that shit back then. But it’s like I saw his internet hustle, his internet grind. And he got on Twitter…. He put me on Twitter…. on this YouTube video, I watched his YouTube shit and he was talkin about… Twitter this Twitter that. Talkin about ‘follow me’. I didn’t know what the fuck that shit was. So I went there and hollered at him. He hollered back. That was a long time ago too. And I think that’s how ‘Taylor Gang’ came about. Cause I had sent him some beats a long time ago and ‘Taylor Gang’ was one of the beats so I think all that shit started from Twitter. But Twitter and MySpace, that’s how I got my shit poppin. How I got my shit goin.”
Post by: Rosie J – music marketer
@StudioDiva
