What is Internet Money and how does it work?
Taz has slowly been grinding away with a new age model that many internet producers have adopted – selling instrumentals and beats online to anybody who wants them. We’ve seen some strike gold with this tactic before; YoungKio became an overnight sensation for his work with Lil Nas X on Old Town Road and, thanks to online beat selling sites, it’s now possible for anybody with enough talent to get noticed.
Internet Money is different to traditional labels, however, and is more akin to the vlogging influencer house model than it is a full on record company. According to an interview with The Fader, the Internet Money team all work together at Taz’s mansion in Hollywood Hills where they work on instrumentals, client outsourcing, and original video content for their YouTube channel. Here’s one you might find interesting – Nick Mira shows how to make a beat in under ten minutes, which involves some absolute mastery that I can barely follow.
Taz and Internet Money also make a killing from ‘type beat’ playlists and videos, collections of instrumentals that are associated with a certain artist’s aesthetic. Searching for ‘Juice WRLD type beats’ on YouTube, for example, will pop up a bunch of instrumentals – and there’s big business in making them.
It took a big gamble to get to this level of success. Taz sold many of his possessions to fund his first beat making studio, but after a few years managed to bag a collaboration with Desiigner. Today, Internet Money is responsible for 34 tracks that have entered into the Billboard 100, and serves as an important Gen Z hub for beat creation, distribution, and education.
Taz has produced for Big Sean, Lil Skies (another Cole Bennett favourite), and BlocBoy JB. You can watch the video for Welcome To The Rodeo below, which was featured on the Lyrical Lemonade YouTube channel two years ago.
What’s next for Taz?
As the SoundCloud aesthetic continues to permeate mainstream pop music, it’s safe to say that young starters like Taz are very likely to become even more prominent names in the industry over the next few years. Teenagers and twenty-somethings are able to create chart topping hits from their bedrooms – and don’t need a hugely corporate label to do so.
It’s an exciting time for hip hop, trap, and rap in general, as the barriers between genres continue to blur and the distinction between underground and overwhelming popularity becomes more abstract. There is no creative limits, and Taz’s success is an ode to the freedom that comes with new age trap.
If the late JUICE WRLD’s staggering numbers and cultural impact is any indication, producers and record label founders such as Taz truly are revolutionising the way we consume and think about music. It’s all unknown from here onward, but the future looks bright indeed.
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