Lol I'll always remember how I got into producing. I was like 13 and was at my cousins house. They had a bootleg version of fruity loops 4 I think (yea I know I'm showing my age lmao). They played me the demo song which was Aliyah's Try Again, but they told me that they're the ones who made the beat lol. I was so gullible I believed them and was blown away at how much it sounded just like original. That whole night I was on their computer trying to remake the "Bad boys for life" beat, which was one of my favorite songs at the time. The beat sounded horrible and nothing like the original, but it did sounded like it to me. I made my cousins listen to it and they laughed at me asking me what the heck was that lolll. Long story short, as soon as I got home, I downloaded FL (overnight because of my slow ass 56k dial up connection we had back then loll), and by the next morning, you could say the journey started for me.
Funny thing tho is that for a looong time I would never make anybody listen to my beats, until I joined FP back in like 04 or something and ppl were telling my beats had potential. I've been on and of with making beats tho, the landscape in terms of making money was different back then and I saw it more just as a hobby. I got a bit more serious with it when a friend and I started this lil rapper/producer duo, but that kinda fell through when I moved to a different city.
Since then, I've been exploring new genres other than the usual boom bap hip hop I used to make and have really grown as a producer, but still more as a hobby tho. The times are very different now and there is so many different ways to make money making beats. Even if the market is somewhat saturated atm, the cream will always rise to the top, so here I am, back at it after an about year or so long hiatus. This time though I'll come at the game with a more business oriented mindset, without losing the soul of my craft of course.
On another note, this site is not what it used to be. I understand that social media has pretty much killed the "forum" format, but I thought that a community like this would stay strong. I guess most ppl moved on to bigger and better things. I remember the days spent on the "flip this" section haha, good times.