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Caleb Akpan aka Mr Kaey is the host and CEO of Mr. kaeyproduction, a YouTube channel dedicated to professional recording, mix and mastering tutorials, music production tips & tricks, Unbiased video reviews of pro and home audio gear, new tech gadgets, and affilite markething skills ect. Mr Kaey is also a platinum mix and mastering engineer and producer with a past as a professional musician.  has won awards and credits across many genres, from rock to hip-hop, metal, EDM and more. You can learn more at MixbusTV.

In 2009 you started YOUTUBE Channel can you tell us a little about the channel and what led to you starting it?

Yeah! The channel is dedicated to mix and mastering tutorials so professional audio mixing and mastering. It evolved into also gear reviews and software reviews for audio because I’m somewhat known for being very technical so companies started to ask me like if I wanted to review their products or test new products and also develop some of them, so yeah. I started the channel actually not knowing anything about YouTube at the time.

Related: How do I get started as an Influencer?

I did not know anything about like monetization or sponsors or nothing, nothing I was just looking for mixing tutorials and new ideas for myself because I am not a YouTuber. I am actually a professional mix engineer, I am a platinum mix engineer and, you know, we want to just get inspired, you know, listening to other things or, you know, always looking for tricks new software so I was looking for myself and I couldn’t find any. I was like “okay like that’s so basic” like all the things that I could find so I was like I know like at least a thousand tricks that like nobody is talking about so let’s, you know. try to do it. And I started doing it for my friends first because I was teaching classes in person so I started doing videos for my students because it was easier to go through, you know, each one of them and that’s how it started. Like one of my videos got very popular and people started asking me like questions like so many I was like okay let’s see what happens.

At what point did you realize that influencer marketing is a viable revenue source?

No long ago actually because like I said I did not know anything about the marketing side of influencer or YouTube or social media platforms and I was my job was mixing which it still is. After awhile talking to some friends that had a different kind of YouTube channels they told me “dude you have like big numbers” back then I had only like twenty-five thousand we are almost seventy now but these friends of mine told me like you can actually like monetize and make money out of it. And when companies really started to ask me to do videos for them and basically they started to ask me like “what’s your fee” and I was like “what” and that was it. After that I learned very quickly how powerful the social media market and platform can be so, yeah. But it wasn’t long ago.

What is the weirdest request you have received?

I don’t get many. Probably because I look mean and people are intimidated by it but the one thing about my channel compared to others of the same subject of the channel like mine is my audience is really amazing. Like I don’t get trolls, I don’t get – I probably receive like five stupid comments in like all the years I’ve had the channel so I don’t get that many crazy requests. I really can’t think of anything.

Like just funny comments here and there because of the way I look but we are all like a bunch of friends and that’s it or my  or something like that or, you know, not any weird requests. Although I am expecting those because I am producing a female artist right now that was in a live stream with me and she’s very pretty and everything so I’m waiting for the wave of comments for that. When she’s going to start coming more on the channel but so far none.

You teach recording, mixing and mastering courses, are an influencer, and this year you just startewd MixbusTv Productions so how do you structure your average work day?

Oh wow that’s a good question. First of all my average work day is eighteen hours. I sleep very little and this is just how it is because between the mixing jobs and channel takes a lot of work, a lot of time. And now I’ve moved back to Los Angeles not long ago, I moved back to Los Angeles in October, and I actually started producing more as a producer and manager specifically with this new artist, Bella and all these things takes a lot of time.

So I usually start my day with my emails which are so many every day and then I try to take care of the more that I can of comments of, you know, my audience because it is very important to just keep in touch with them, you know, be grounded, and keep replying to the comments as much as you can. Those are the guys that keep, you know, your channel alive so you need to make time for them. And the reason I started the channel was because I felt good helping people so I keep wanting to do that as much as I can after that the rest of the day is mixing and dealing with all the business side of the music industry.

So right now we are about to release my artist her single and video so the past two months we had a lot of work for the production of it, the video, and now there’s all the promotional part for actually releasing which is not releasing on YouTube or Spotify there is so much, you know, more. There’s actually an actual, official release so it’s a lot of promotion covering all the platforms all the social media for her at this point because with her I’m basically her manager not just her producer so yeah my day is very long.

You’ve collaborated with various artists on their albums do you have any tips  on mixing and recording you might have learned from working with the different artists?

Yeah absolutely! As for getting into the business my best advice would be don’t stress too much the technical side. Which is, you know, kind of funny because that’s mostly what I teach on the channel but work I would say seventy percent on your public relation. On the human connection that you would build with people whether you want to work with musicians go to shows, talk to them, you know, go to events, go to networking parties, go to all the events where you can meet people and be in the industry in the scene the more that you can because that’s what gets you in. There’s a lot of great engineer and producers out there which unfortunately nobody knows because it’s hard to get noticed.

Related: What happens after I sign up?

You have some much information coming in your feed every minute that it’s basically almost impossible unless you have a budget to promote yourself and get right on top and appear on everybody’s feed the first thing they see. It’s really hard to be noticed just for your skills so you need to work on your public relation, you need to work on yeah building contacts and connections at events expos, shows do all of them like as much as you can. And then of course in your spare time you need to deliver that’s one of my biggest again pet peeve. You need to deliver more than you’re asked that’s what the standard nowadays is in music production more specifically, you know.

Today it’s kind of easy to get out a decent sounding product with the technology that we have. Basically if you don’t mess up it couldn’t go out but the difference between why someone pays me to mix their record is the added value. It is because you don’t just do what the client asks you cover that the first day and then the second day you add, you know, your magic touch The client not only doesn’t have to ask you for a revision but goes “holy what’s that that’s amazing”, you know, you need to wow the people that are around you so, yeah it’s not easy. That’s the goal.

What are some goals you have in the near future as it pertains to influencer marketing and music?

Yeah that’s right now my main goal. My next step I want – the goal is to start with Bella, that’s the name of the artist, and make her basically break her into the market, mainstream top market and after that extend MixbusTv Productions to as many artists as we can.

I now will be at another expo we will do in which hopefully we will get more confident and more that’s the main goal is to switch from being independent, freelancer producer even if yeah like you said I had some awards, you know, I’m happy with what I’ve done so far that’s definitely the next step is to go to the other side because my plan is to if I can to do it like old school. So real A&R, go to clubs, see people, see good musicians, think that, you know what, that guy kicks ass let’s get it on, let’s try and make it, you know, that’s the goal. In the immediate future I don’t think we’ll be able to do that but we are on the right path. So far we are happy with how the production and what we are looking at for the next month so fingers cross and maybe MixbusTv Productions will, you know, become big.

Note: Influencer Spotlight interviews are edited for time and clarity.