By J. Saxon
It is said that a person’s gift will make room for them, and Queen Ife, a junior business administration major with a general business concentration, experienced that when she was invited to appear on the Jennifer Hudson Show this past January to demonstrate creating beats using household items.
“It was through a video I posted,” said Ife as she described how she was contacted by show staffers. “I made ‘Are You That Somebody’ by Aaliyah out of household objects, and they saw the video. Within 48-72 hours, they reached out.”
Ife participated in a segment where she gave Hudson a bit of insight into her creative process as she used household objects such as a bottle of lotion, Tupperware lids and hairspray to recreate the beat to Rick James’ “Super Freak”.
“I always liked music from a very young age,” said Ife. “I got a keyboard when I was four from my parents and producing started with songwriting. I liked writing songs, especially during the pandemic. I was like, ‘Dang, I kind of want some instrumentation behind this’, and I learned how to make beats on my own.”
Learning through a combination of what she called “YouTube University” and Tik-Tok, Ife started putting together beats and posting them on Instagram, Tik-Tok and BeatStars, an online platform that connects artists with producers.
But the pandemic provided Ife with more just time and space to pick up a new hobby. As a business student, Ife has been taught how to assess her resources and figure out how to package what she has available into something that could have market value. Ife tapped into her entrepreneurial mindset and leveraged the digital realm to turn her beat making into a profitable endeavor.
“It started off with a small following, and from there connections were built,” said Ife. “It starts off with a genuine conversation and building genuine connections. I know it’s not good to force it, and it should be genuine from the jump. It starts organically. They like what they hear, and, sometimes, they reach out like, ‘Yo, how much for this beat?’, or ‘Could you make me a custom beat?’”
Ife has made beats for emerging artists in the United States and abroad in the R&B, hip-hop and afrobeats genres, but she is always looking to expand her scope when it comes to making music. Ife plans to act on the encouragement she received from Hudson during her guest spot and wants to use her education to take her producer skills as far as she can go in the music industry.
“Take it day by day,” she said. “Rome wasn’t built in a day. Focus on one thing at once. Even if you can get just one percent better at something every day, it’s still something. You don’t have to conquer the world in a day.”
