Type Beat Niche Selection: How to Pick the Right Artists to Target

A strong type beat niche has three characteristics: enough search demand to drive real traffic, a buying audience (not just listeners), and competition low enough for a newer channel to break in. The best niches are rarely the most obvious ones.

The niches to avoid:

• Drake, Juice WRLD, Lil Baby type beats – enormous search volume but dominated by channels with millions of subscribers. You won't rank without years of SEO authority behind you.
• Artists who no longer release music – search interest declines steadily. Avoid artists who've been on a long hiatus.
• Artists with no buyer community – pure listeners who don't make music themselves don't buy beats.

Before committing to a niche, validate it with real search data. The process:

• Search “[Artist Name] type beat” on YouTube and note the view counts on the top 10 results. Ideally you want to see videos getting 20,000–500,000 views – large enough to prove demand, small enough that newcomers can compete.
• Check the upload dates. Recent uploads getting strong views mean active demand. Old uploads with all the views mean the niche is coasting on old momentum.
• Look at the channels ranking. Are they large (1M+ subscribers) or smaller (10k–200k)? Smaller channels ranking well means the niche is accessible.
• Use VidIQ or TubeBuddy to see estimated monthly search volume for the exact keyword.

The highest-ROI approach to type beat niche selection is targeting mid-tier artists – rappers or singers who are genuinely popular but haven't reached mainstream saturation yet. These are artists with:

• 500k – 5M monthly Spotify listeners
• Active release schedule in the past 12 months
• A fanbase that includes aspiring rappers (not just passive listeners)
• A distinctive sound that's easy to replicate and label in a title

Examples of artists at this tier historically: Polo G before his mainstream breakout, Rod Wave in 2020, NoCap throughout his career. You want artists on the rise, not artists who've already peaked.

Geographic and subgenre angles are heavily underused in type beat strategy. Instead of “drill type beat,” you can go deeper:

• UK drill type beat – distinct sound, strong demand from UK producers, lower competition than Chicago drill
• Memphis type beat – underground rap subgenre with a dedicated niche audience and low competition
• Detroit type beat – regional sound with national reach thanks to producers like producers from that scene gaining prominence
• Afrobeats type beat – growing globally, significant untapped YouTube search volume

Going deep into a subgenre lets you dominate a smaller pond instead of getting lost in the ocean of mainstream type beats.

New producers should focus on one primary niche until they have at least 30–50 videos ranking. Spreading across 5 niches at once means none of them get enough content to build search authority.

The right expansion path:

• Start with 1 primary niche – 80% of your uploads
• Test a secondary niche with 20% of uploads after month 2
• After 3 months of data, double down on whichever niche is performing better
• Add a third niche only after the first two have established traction

Your YouTube niche and your BeatStars tags should be aligned. If you're targeting a specific artist on YouTube, that artist's name should appear in your BeatStars tags for those beats. Producers who treat YouTube and BeatStars as separate worlds miss the compounding effect of both platforms pointing toward the same audience.

Tag strategy aligned with niche:

• Primary artist name (e.g., the artist you're making type beats for)
• Genre tag (e.g., drill, melodic rap, phonk)
• Mood tags (e.g., dark, aggressive, emotional)
• Tempo and key tags (e.g., “140 BPM,” “F minor”)

You'll know it's time to pivot when: three months of consistent uploads isn't generating views, the artist you targeted has left their peak popularity window, or a more promising opportunity has emerged in your analytics.

Don't pivot based on impatience – 8–12 weeks is the minimum time needed to evaluate a niche fairly. But if the data is clearly pointing toward a better opportunity, move toward it deliberately rather than abandoning your existing catalog suddenly.