YCImaging creates a track with HDBeenDope

What happens when you connect a videographer that creates hip hop music videos and a rap artist, to collaborate on a song? You get a track like Heaters, but you also get an amazing look at two creatives working together to create it! Music Matters is one of our exciting series filmed and edited by Florian Land. It covers the stories behind the music and brings you closer to some of Epidemic Sound's most interesting music producers. In this episode, we bring together HDBeenDope, a rapper and producer, and YCImaging, a YouTuber and music video director.

YCImaging backstory

Before YCImaging got into video production, he was a graphic designer. With dreams of creating posters for movies, he started out in the music industry by creating album covers for artists. One day, armed with a video camera, he decided to shoot a music video for his brother - forever changing his future! It became an obsession that soon became a career, both in the form of working for others and on his own YouTube channel. To date, he's shot over 500 music videos!

HDBeenDope backstory

As a third-grader, HDBeenDope was given a book by a teacher to write short stories in. He also used it to write rhymes - something he was immediately passionate about. His brother was a big hip hop fan which exposed him to some of his early musical influences: 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg. That innate passion drove him to creating his own music. As a crafty child, he'd burn instrumentals to a CD, then using a cassette player to record his own vocals over the tracks. An artist was born!

The collaborative process

The two finally sit down to discuss the plan for the track. This is where things get interesting because we get to see how an idea develops into a production. HDBeenDope encourages YCImaging to share his ideas and a general feeling that he'd like to achieve with the track. Answered simply: "Something bass-y, with some energy."

As HDBeenDope takes the reigns in production, he shares how he works. He starts with a simple question - “What am I talking about?” Starting a record or a track with an idea on what you want the listener to experience is the most important point. Then it's onto the drums, which give a rhythm for him to mumble some lyrics to. From there, it's adding extra instrumentals and sounds to round out the track. It's a process that is largely unknown to anyone outside of producers - but YCImaging immediately recognizes how much work goes into it. It's not simple and involves hours and hours of work. But even then, those hours translate to thousands of hours of previous experience as well.

Fortunately for our duo, they're coming up with something impressive. YCImaging is particularly impressed with the quality of the track. Hard to argue when the end result (which you can listen to here) is lit!

Finally, as this episode comes to a close, we have some valuable insight from HDBeenDope. "Life gives you two paths - freedom or security. Both roads can lead to each other, but you have to choose which one you're on. Anyone creative knows this and we can all relate to it because we often chose the path of freedom first. [But with freedom] you often feel like you're not at the level you're supposed to be."

This episode of Music Matters was shot and edited by Florian Land.

Music Featured:

• For the Record (OOYY Remix) by OOYY + HDBeenDope
• Rev Run by HDBeenDope
• For the Record by HDBeenDope
• 9th Power by Henyao For the Record (Dylan Sitts Remix) by Dylan Sitts + HDBeenDope