It doesn't matter what style of rap you prefer, getting your music before a DJ is one of the best ways to begin to build local support for yourself but it all begins with at least remixing one of your tracks to a club beat. It's important to get your music in the club format because for one, the club audience is a captive audience and two, you can have access to local DJs much more easily than any other form or promoter in the industry. And having your music played at the club is all about promotion.
To begin with, DJs are all about discovering new talent and exposing their audiences to that new talent. every DJ wants to be able to say that they discovered some rapper or another, and so they always have an eye out for local talent who might help them to achieve that statement. But DJs have another reason for playing local talent, which is that it can help to grow and retain an audience. Local talent can bring in more people, and a good DJ can keep those people. SO for this reason alone, DJs would always love to play a local rapper, if only they fulfilled two criteria. The first criteria local talent has to meet is that they produce a track over a club beat. The second criteria is that the rappers have talent and make a sick song.
It's not enough to be able to rap well. It's not enough to have a beat that will work in the club, you have to rap well to a club beat or it's end of discussion. Dig out a hot club beat and put together a song for it that sounds at least respectable and the chances that you can get yourself some play in the club are highly increased. This is especially true if you target you DJs. In other words, find what kind of music they lean toward and then put your song over a style beat that you think they already would play.
Part of getting some attention is creating the right connections. And this is why working over club beats has such appeal for so many rappers with little experience. It's because you can immediately make connections at a club. People are listening, and if you can get your record to get some air time then people will remember you. Don't forget that the audience is just like the DJs and love the idea of discovering someone local and new who might go on to great things.
Put yourself out there to be heard, and you never known what type of publicity you can get. You never know, by rapping over a club beat and getting it in the hands of a DJ, and before a good size local audience, you just might go on to get the type of exposure you deserve and crave. It's a hard process for anyone, but a key first step is certainly rapping to a club beat.
