Adam Ducey’s basement may feel like a typical suburban basement at first; smelling of worn cardboard and concrete, with storage boxes piled on a ping-pong table and an old television adorned with a collection of old tea cans, nothing out of the ordinary is in sight. But a second look reveals, among tattered flags of local sports teams, two computer monitors, complete with piano keyboards. This is the humble studio of STLBeats, and it is anything but typical.
Adam, sophomore, has grown up surrounded by music. His parents, Tim and Jean, met when Tim sang at his sister’s wedding. Tim would strap Adam and his siblings into their highchairs and sing and play guitar for them. Adam’s elementary school teacher referred to the noises Adam made in class as “alien noises.”
“He’s had the beats and the music in his head since he was a little kid,” Jean said.
Those alien noises, combined with a casual venture into music editing software in 7th grade, resulted in the 65 beats that define Adam’s current role as a hip-hop beat producer. The initial step to producing a beat often takes place on online forums dedicated to producers and rappers communicating with each other.
If Adam is looking for a rapper to add vocals to a beat he has already produced, then he and the rapper will simply exchange tracks and the song will come together itself. But if a rapper contacts Adam seeking a beat, Adam essentially becomes a professional producer.
“[They will] ask, ‘Can I get exclusive rights to this beat,’ and my reaction is just, ‘Sure, why not,’ I’m earning a hundred dollars,” Adam said.
Through the same simple process of contacting rappers through forums, Ducey was able to get in touch with the agent of chart-topping rapper Mac Miller, and has been discussing the prospect of producing a beat for Miller this summer.
“To be able to say that Mac Miller was on my beat, that would make everything a hundred percent better,” Adam said.
With Adam’s age comes the looming prospect of college and studying music.
“He’s got the perfect mixture of that really analytical brain with common sense, and this creative streak that he’s not afraid to use,” Jean said.
Whether he goes to college for music or not, Adam’s passion has made his parents proud.
“When you have kids, you hope they have a passion that they really get into, and I’m proud of Adam for finding [beat-making] and really just diving into it,” Tim said.
Ducey views the feedback he gets about his beats as an especially important part of making music.
“It feels pretty good to have people tell me ‘I like your beats, dude, keep it up,’” Adam said. “People tell me I’m going to be famous, and if I do, I’ll always come back to Kirkwood.”
To listen to one of Adam’s first beats, click here.
To listen to Adam’s sounds on Soundcloud, click here.
To visit Adam’s twitter, click here.
