Produced by Nef: From a New Hampshire Kitchen to DJ Premier
I remember the porch in Manchester, New Hampshire. Nef had just made a French press of coffee and played me some tracks he was working on. Then he looked me dead in the eyes and said, New Hampshire has nothing left for me. And he started crying.
Back then he was a head chef at a really nice restaurant. He would leave work, go record somebody or play a show until 2:30 in the morning, get up and do it again. Today he is the go to audio engineer for DJ Premier and has worked with Nas. Episode 70 of The Purpose Chasers is how he got from that porch to Brooklyn.
The Fly on the Wall
Nef did not arrive in New York and get handed a session. He spent a full year playing his role, which he describes as being the fly on the wall. Watching, learning the rooms, earning the right to be in them. I have heard him describe scenarios inside that world that were high pressure, and the lesson every time was the same: be humble enough to get in your lane and stay there until you have earned the next one.
That matters to me because I learned it the hard way in business. If I had gotten to a $5.1 million contract before my internal game was ready to match it, it would have destroyed me. The respect you earn inside an industry is the real asset, and Nef earned his one session at a time.
The Call From Premier
The pivotal moment came through Statik Selektah, at a Q-Tip party Nef still describes like a scene out of a movie, dancers on the ceilings and all. Then word came that DJ Premier needed another engineer to fill a gap.
"I remember being like, oh my god, I'll go right now, like it's DJ Premier. Oh my god, what do I do, what do I do, what do I do. And he's like, yo, you just got to chill."
So Nef chilled. A month went by. Then: hey, he still wants to talk to you. Years later the relationship is the center of his working life.
"A lot of the work that I do with DJ Premier, engineering, tour managing, there's a lot of work to be done. This man has so much work to be put out."
The Art of the Pivot: Music as a Business
The second half of the episode is the part most artists skip. Nef has turned a creative passion into a sustainable business by thinking about SEO, digital assets and passive income instead of living gig to gig. I wrapped the episode on SEO because I am a word nerd, and because of this:
Most artists, producers and engineers, even the famous names Nef mentioned on this show, do not own their names or their work on the internet. Other people do. Ticket sellers and publicists own an artist's name through the SEO work they do, and that is how the music industry quietly takes from the people who make it.
So part of my work with Nef has been burying his name in the internet so that when someone searches Produced by Nef, they find Nef. The same thing I do for coaches and contractors with the Social Proof System applies to a producer: own your name, document the work, let the people you worked with say what it was like.
Keep Listening
Bobby J from Rockaway on Radio Days, the EP he and Nef built together
Termanology, one of Nef's mentors, on Good Dad Gang and fatherhood
Michael Lashomb of Annie in the Water on building a band that lasts
Want to Own Your Name Online?
On The Purpose Chasers I sit down with people who are building something that matters. In my business, The Happy Check, I help coaches, creators and service businesses turn that same kind of real story into video testimonials and content that bring in clients.
If you want to take your marketing to the next level, book an organic marketing audit call with me.
Or start with the free Happy Check book and learn who to ask, when to ask and how to use what they say.
Keep reading: why owned proof beats rented attention, how I build SEO and automation for clients.
