By Kierra Bannister

Since March, hip-hop producer Kenny Beats has been using live-streaming platform Twitch to put budding record producers on the map. Beats, who has recently worked with the likes of Joji, Dominic Fike, Vince Staples and BENEE, has created a haven for music lovers to gather while quarantined. Despite the havoc covid-19 wreaked on the music industry, Beats hasn’t let a global pandemic halt his creative process.

Over the last few months, Beats’ dedicated Twitch community of 190,000+ artists, songwriters, and fans connected to watch home-grown producers from around the world go head-to-head in a series of production challenges dubbed “beat battles”, each prompted by a brief to transform a unique sample into a sonically palatable track. Every week, Kenny deep-dived into his viral video rolodex and tapped into his knowledge of all things audio to expertly select outlandish samples. In doing so, he was able to weed out his elite, Ableton-proficient followers to declare winners for each battle. The samples contestants worked with ranged from vintage Jeopardy! clips featuring an auto-tuned Alex Trebek sing-reading folk song lyrics, to soundbites from the infamous clip of Michael Jackson’s Las Vegas shopping spree. Due to the sheer amount of talent present in Beats’ Twitch community, what resulted was a series of (mostly) awesome production skills being highlighted, spanning a variety of genres. Even if a beat wasn’t up to par, combined with Kenny’s personable hosting and the opinionated commentary from viewers, entertainment was always a guarantee.

During Twitch’s recent GlitchCon 2020, Beats hosted the “Kenny Beats Battle Extravaganza.” After weeks of whittling down his pool of competitors, eight producers entered the finale with the hopes of winning $10,000 and the opportunity to have their song mastered by TDE audio engineer MixedbyAli, known for his Grammy-winning mixing work with Kendrick Lamar. In the end, three finalists vied for the title - oksami, an LA-based electronic funk producer, SPELL, a New Zealand-bred DJ known for his west coast bounce sound, and the winner, Matt Zara, a London-based guitarist. Since the battles first started, some competitors have signed record contracts and others have started their own profitable Twitch channels, but what they all share is an expanded listenership and online reach they otherwise wouldn’t have had. They’ve found support through the close-knit community fostered by Beats on what was just a few months ago, an unlikely platform for musicians. 

Before quarantine, the Amazon-owned Twitch was synonymous with the gaming world. Now, Twitch has become a pillar in the music industry a la SoundCloud and other major DSPs. Tracy Chan, Twitch’s VP, Head of Music, recently (and enthusiastically) announced via Twitter that music was “now a full-blown category” on the service, aided by its new “Music Directory”, enabling customized content discovery for users. Additionally, the platform is currently addressing copyright-infringement issues creators have been experiencing with its music library, “Soundtrack by Twitch”, further positioning itself as one to watch as it takes steps to be on the side of creators, labels, and artists. 

As the live music industry has had to adjust to the impacts of the pandemic, the power of Twitch’s influence reveals major implications about the future of the business. While venues are facing economic turmoil and the threat of closure is imminent for so many nationwide, Twitch is providing emerging and top-tier producers, DJs and musicians with a stage of their own to have the freedom to do what they want. The ability to monetize live streams and build bridges with fans is crucial as so many artists have suffered from losses linked to getting on the road to tour and meet their fans IRL. While everyone has spent the last few months seeking out new ways to grow and maintain relationships, Kenny Beats is one of many artists who has tapped Twitch to do that effectively through music - the mainstay medium that seems to keep us all connected. 

Music is what we naturally seek when there is little else to turn to, and Beats is leveraging that through his self-made hub of positivity and quality engagement. Twitch has become the leading platform for artists to regain control over their careers and its next moves will dictate the ins and outs of the industry in the coming months, which is why is so important to witness how artists like Beats continue to innovate and adapt.

Kierra is a culture writer for La Tonique.