Producing in the studio for rappers?

I've been producing for about 4 years and am just now confident enough in my work to start the networking/business/selling part of it. Most of the underground rappers I've reached out to already have close relationships with exclusive producers, so I've been trying to find up and comers who don't have exclusive producers like that. I finally found one...and he lives in my hometown! He's on hnhh, datpiff, countless rap blogs, and his soundcloud is still <5,000 followers so I feel like this is my chance. I've never been to a music studio before, (bedroom producers ftw), and I want to hit him up to try and work with him but I feel like once he finds out we live in the same city he'll just ask me to come to the studio and make beats on the spot for him, and I'm super nervous about that. I've never been in a studio, I've never worked with a rapper, and I've never been put on the spot like that to produce and it doesn't help that I have bad performance anxiety (used to take medication for it when I was an athlete).

I guess I would like to hear some opinions/feedback on my situation and some tips from you producers who have worked in the studio with rappers.
And also, if this ends up working out and I start producing for him in the studio on the reg, do I charge him? Do producers charge rappers if they're working pretty much exclusively?
 
That is probably as well equipped as you. ;)

Means he has a budget mic and records in his living room/ bedroom.

And if you never make the first step... I think you get me. :)

Connect with him, be straight, be friendly, it's all about communication.
 
I've been producing for about 4 years and am just now confident enough in my work to start the networking/business/selling part of it. Most of the underground rappers I've reached out to already have close relationships with exclusive producers, so I've been trying to find up and comers who don't have exclusive producers like that. I finally found one...and he lives in my hometown! He's on hnhh, datpiff, countless rap blogs, and his soundcloud is still <5,000 followers so I feel like this is my chance. I've never been to a music studio before, (bedroom producers ftw), and I want to hit him up to try and work with him but I feel like once he finds out we live in the same city he'll just ask me to come to the studio and make beats on the spot for him, and I'm super nervous about that. I've never been in a studio, I've never worked with a rapper, and I've never been put on the spot like that to produce and it doesn't help that I have bad performance anxiety (used to take medication for it when I was an athlete).

I guess I would like to hear some opinions/feedback on my situation and some tips from you producers who have worked in the studio with rappers.
And also, if this ends up working out and I start producing for him in the studio on the reg, do I charge him? Do producers charge rappers if they're working pretty much exclusively?

You can either contact him, fail with your passion and withdraw with a bad feeling.
Or you can contact him, succeed with your passion and find this was the best move you ever did.
Or you can become better than him and ask him to come work with you, now you might feel more in the comfort zone, but you might hurt his passion if he fails in that collaboration.

I think that you should choose the path that is representing most closely your deepest desire and do so from a state of compassion, both towards others and yourself. Fears and failures are a short term bi-product, but fighting against your fears and focusing on your passions and desires, is what gradually makes you more whole, loving and fulfilled.

Keep in mind that this is not a one way thing. When you act in compassion because you want to help this guy and yourself towards fulfilling experiences, the other party can act on fears or compassion. Therefore whichever of the above routes you choose, the end result is to some degree determined by the choice and behavior of the other party. To understand why it still makes sense to act aligned to your deepest desires and challenge your fears, is to compare a life of never doing so against a life of always doing so. The latter is what will make the other party, whoever it then is, eventually act in compassion and now you are harmonzing towards what both of you need to do in life at that moment. It just takes two parties acting towards the same vibration and when you bravely act towards that vibration at some point there is going to be a party choosing the same. Once you are in that spot of mutual vulnerability, it is also a mutual compassion. In that zone fears and failures have no power. The bond, the joy and the fulfillment is what both of you dont want to lose, hence it is something that is subject to mutual protection. So paint it not in black whichever route or outcome it becomes.
 
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