Beat Battle with Akai & Erick Sermon

1. Make a beat by sampling ‘Every Little Beat of my Heart’ by Flashlight (Philly Groove Records)
2. Upload a video of your beat to Instagram (max 60 seconds) on or before Sunday August 11th
3. Tag the video with #akaitracklib
4. Follow @tracklib, @akai_pro and @reservoirmedia on Instagram.
5. Tag at least two producer friends in your post.

First Prize:

• An Akai MPD218 MIDI pad controller – signed by Erick Sermon!
• 1 Sample Clearance (Cat C) + 100 Tracklib Download Credits from Tracklib
  Second Prize:
  - MPC Software & Expansions
• 1 Sample Clearance (Cat C) + 50 Tracklib Download Credits from Tracklib
  Third Prize:
• MPC Software & Expansions
• 1 Sample Clearance (Cat C) + 25 Tracklib Download Credits from Tracklib

Soul label Philly Groove Records was founded in 1967 by Stan ‘The Man’ Watson, backed by hitmaker Thom Bell (The Stylistics, The Spinners, Elton John & The Delfonics). It’s one of the essential labels shaping the classic Philadelphia Soul sound from the late 60s to 70s: soul with added strings, horns and heavy funk influences. Much smoother and slicker than deep soul from the same era. Or as renowned recording engineer Joseph Tarsia put it in a short documentary for the Uncovering the Philly Groove project: "Soul music dressed in a tuxedo.” The catalog is now owned and managed by Reservoir Media and we're very happy that they decided to allow Tracklib to license this amazing catalog of music.

Tracklib includes previously unreleased stems and masters from Philly Groove. Dig in for tracks by First Choice, Sound Experience, Coup De Villes & more, never released before for sampling.

As a special treat for owners of Akai's MPC-, MPD- and MPK- series controllers, Tracklib and Reservoir Media are giving away three amazing soul tracks to chop up and sample. One of them even includes 8 separate stem files. Your unique download code can be found on your Akai Pro account, under "My Registered Products". If you can't find your unique download code, please contact Akai support.

The Green-Eyed Bandit doesn't need no introduction. He has been making dollars together with Parrish Smith since 1988. Aside from classic EPMD albums such as Strictly Business, Erick Sermon started his solo career as an emcee/producer in 1993, releasing two handfuls of albums and producing for the likes of Jay Z, LL Cool J, Raekwon, Busta Rhymes, Scarface, Method Man, Redman, and other fellow Def Squad and Hit Squad affiliates. Erick just dropped the brand new album Vernia. You can listen to it here.

Your Instagram profile needs to be public for us to be able to see your post. Only entries using the #akaitracklib tag with at least two friends are tagged, will be entering the competition.

Your music is still yours. We do not own any of the entries to this competition and will not use them for any other advertising purposes. We will, however, repost your tracks to promote the competition itself.

The first prize will be awarded a full sample license to monetize their work for free. The winner will, however, still have to pay the original rightsholders their share (5, 10 or 20% depending on sample time) of any eventual revenue earned on the new song.

No purchase is necessary to participate, but the samples need to be downloaded using a personal account on Tracklib. The prize is as stated and no cash or other alternatives will be offered. The prizes are not transferable and will be added to the winners Tracklib account.

And you can submit as many entries as you want, as long as they all follow the rules.

Last day to enter the beat battle is Sunday August 11th 2019.

If you have any further questions about the rules of this competition - just ask us at support@tracklib.com.

If you can't find your unique download code for the Akai downloads, please contact Akai support.