A music producer brings the vision or concept of a song/album to life. It could be for themselves or an artist they’re working with.

TG2K sat down with Dali Monageng better known as ‘Dali Danger’ to get a better understanding of how music production works. 

Born and bred in Vosloorus in Johannesburg Dali rose to fame for his funny skits on YouTube with his best friend OkayWasabi. 

“I knew I wanted to make music when I heard artists like Eminem and 50 Cent. I would listen to their music until I started writing my own raps,” he says.

Dali who produces and writes his own music says “95% of the time I start with the beat first. I’ll either start the beat myself or get a producer to make the beat then when it’s done, I think of an idea and write to it.”

When asked if he also has a team that assists with the music productions, he says: “At first I used to work with producers and they’d make the beats without me. These days I’m more hands-on because I want to control how the song sounds and the direction in which the song goes into. I have two producers that I work with and occasionally I’ll outsource other artist that specialise in playing instruments to add on to the beat.” 

The world has now moved to digital streams and that’s where the money is. Its interesting to know how the producer navigates the space. “I make money from digital stores through streaming only. Each store has their own rates per stream. I own all my music masters.”  

Dali highlights not all months are the same when it comes to monetising and he has also branched out and started selling merchandise. “Yes, I do sell clothes to my fans. I sell merch and that keeps me afloat on months when there’s no income”

Dali recently released the song Koko which became an instant hit on social media and created the Koko Challenge. When asked what inspired the song he says, “the name of this song is Koko which represents knocking. I’m knocking at unconventional places because so many doors have been close on me that I decided to create my own doors.”

“My advice to aspiring producers is to find one artist to work with and grow with them instead of chasing big artists.”