Junior Michael Pratt bobs his head up and down to his beat as he waits for the bass to drop. Meanwhile, junior McKinley Clemons is given a random word and starts freestyling his own rap on the spot.

Clemons and Pratt joined forces in their freshman year to create music. While Pratt makes the beats under the name Mike Beats, Clemons writes the

lyrics and raps.

“I make beats every day when I get home and send at least one beat to McKinley every night,” Pratt said.
Clemons has written more than 100 songs, both individually and with Pratt’s rhythms, but said that the majority are unfinished.

“I always have my phone on me so I can write down any lyrics that come to me,” Clemons said.
Together, they have made 15 songs and are about to release their newest single, “Moses,” through their soundcloud this coming April.

Pratt and Clemons met while playing freshman football at Redwood and immediately realized that their passions overlapped. They wrote their first song,“Salvation,” in 2013.

Pratt taught himself how to work the music-making applications on his computer through the variety of videos that he watched. Pratt creates his beats by listening to a variety of soul music to get chords from, creating the melody from scratch and then layering on drums to make the beat.
Initially, he uploaded his beats online for free, but within a month of uploading,unknown people started asking to buy his music.

“My first reaction was, ‘What? You want to buy my beat?’ I just gave away my beats for free until I figured out I could start making money off of it,” Pratt said.

With the money he earned from selling his beats he was able to purchase advanced equipment that helped make better rhythms.

Clemons first began writing poetry at age 11 with a group called “Young, Gifted, and Black,” an organization made up of elementary, middle, and high school students that teaches the past of African-Americans through poetry. Clemons later had the opportunity to perform at an Independence Day event in
Ghana with his group.

“Because I write poetry, I was more influenced and driven to write lyrics,” Clemons said.

When he began to rap and write his own lyrics he was especially intrigued because of his past writing poetry.

“Music is one of the broadest forms of expression,” Clemons said.

Pratt played a variety of instruments before finding his passion for making beats. He played the drums in fourth grade, piano in sixth grade, and guitar in eighth.

Although playing music has been a big role in his passion for making beats, listening to his idols has also been extremely influential.

“In seventh grade I heard the album “Man on the Moon: End of the Day” by Kid Cudi for the first time and thought it was the coolest thing in the world. Ever since then making music is all I’ve wanted to do,” Pratt said.

“When you find something you want to do and you like doing, why not do it? Especially when you’re this young, I’m going to do what I enjoy doing.” Pratt
said.

When Pratt and Clemons release done of their songs, “See Me Now,” last August, they immediately got thousands of hits. The song racked up about 10,000 views on YouTube in two weeks. This was the turning point in which the two artists were truly opened up to the idea of producing music for a living.

“Everyone can connect to music and everyone likes music. If you have a pair of ears you can connect to music, which is why I love to make it,” Pratt said.