Beats in the Beginning

About 2 years ago, during the spring of 8th grade, I finally decided that I wanted to become serious with beat-making. Prior to that moment, the only thing I did with my beat-making program was fool around and pointlessly produce beats that would never see the light of SoundCloud. A few days later, I uploaded a couple of beats I made to SoundCloud. 

They were terrible. Not much content, not a lot of variety, and the beats just sounded lame overall. This is the beat here; 
As you can hear, it was not good. At all. But everyone has to start somewhere, and that was the beginning of my SoundCloud "career." 

Even though it sounds terrible, this beat means a lot to me. It is one of my first beats I ever made on FL Studio, and it was the first beat I ever uploaded to SoundCloud. This beat signified the beginning of my passion for producing beats, which I believe is one of the best decisions I made in my life, because to this day, I'm still producing beats.

Throughout my project, I want to show my growth in producing beats. I know I have improved a lot since my very first beat, and I want to show it. 

How I got Interested in Music Production

All my life, I have loved hip hop and everything about it. As a third grader, I would stay up all night rapping Eminem's "Not Afraid" or Drake's "Forever". I was absolutely in love with rap and hip hop, but at the time, I really only paid attention to the lyrics of songs, never the beats and the production. As time went on, I started to change. All of a sudden, I started enjoying the beats and the small details about the producing more than the lyrics. The drums, the hi hats, the kicks; everything about the production, I started noticing more than ever before.

Over that period of time, from about 2010 to 2014, I put in a huge amount of time researching about the producers of my then favorite rappers, Kanye West, Drake, and J. Cole. I basically started to worship Noah "40" Shebib, the producer for Drake, and Mike Dean, one of Kanye West's main producers. Their work to my ears, was flawless. Amazing. Godly. I wanted to become just like they are, produce music just like they do, become Grammy winners just like they have. They were my role models, and to this day, they still are. They are at the top of the music industry, and that is where I want myself to be in a decade. It's a humongous dream; I know; but if I stick towards that goal and work hard, it's not just a dream, it's a possibility.

At the time, in 2014, I had never touched a producing program before, much less attempted to make beat. I wanted that to change. I scoured the Internet for websites that I could possibly make beats on, but it was to no avail. I knew I couldn't buy one, because the programs I were looking for were at least $200 or more. I couldn't afford that, so I had to find a cheap or even free alternative.