He was making beats on YouTube for years. Then one day J. Cole was 'inspired' and wrote a song to one.

• Andrew Archer, a producer from New York, has released "type beat" tracks on YouTube for years.
• Archer, known as Bvtman, has a slew of instrumentals inspired by J. Cole.

If you scroll down far enough on Andrew Archer's YouTube channel you'll find beats dating back to 2011. It's more than just music for the budding producer known as Bvtman — it's a form of therapy and a way to release.

The Brooklyn native told Insider he made his first beat at age 7 and took his passion to the next level when he was in high school at New York City's Urban Assembly for Music and Art.

"When I was living on Church Ave with my dad, he had his little basement where he kept his music stuff, and he always had people come through and record in the studio, said Archer, 30. "So I would be there chilling at home, messing on the machines, and I just got into it eventually."

He continued, "And I took it really seriously in high school, outside of rapping. I'm like, 'Yo, I need my own beats.' So I just started making beats. And now we're here."

Archer, who said he is influenced by the late revered producer J Dilla, started to post his instrumentals on YouTube regularly. However, a friend recommended that he start to add "type beat" — a track that fits the particular sound of an artist — to his titles to push his content through the algorithm.

So about five years ago, he started releasing type beats inspired by a slew of well-known hip-hop artists including Nipsey Hussle, Drake, Isaiah Rashad, and J. Cole, among others.

"I just started doing it every day. I'd see 10 views, and went to 100 views and 10,000 views, and then it just kept going up. I'm like, 'I figured this out," Archer said."I chose those artists because I hoped to work with them one day. And now the J. Cole situation happened, so it's a blessing."

'A stamp of approval'

Archer said Ibrahim "IB" Hamad, J. Cole's manager and a fellow co-founder of Dreamville Records, reached out to him on Instagram last week. One moment he was driving on the highway and the next he was on the phone with Hamad who told him that Cole blessed his "The Reunion" instrumental — which Archer originally released last June.

"He's like, "Yo, you inspired J. Cole one day. He was going through type beats, and your beat was the beat he found and he's got a verse to it," Archer explained. "He wants you to put it out because you inspired him when he was going through a block, and changes of inspiration."

"I'm like, "Nah, you lying," he said he thought to himself.

But when he pressed play, he heard the North Carolina MC's voice.

"As soon as I heard Cole in the beginning, I was like, 'This is real," he continued. " It was a moment of clarity for me, and a moment of joy, uncontrollable joy. That was a stamp of approval."

Archer uploaded the song, dubbed "procrastination(broke)," on his YouTube channel — with the green light from "The Off-Season" rapper himself — which has garnered nearly 2.5 million views as of January 2023.

The cover art of the track, created by Archer, is a screenshot of a text message from the rapper relayed through Hamad, showing gratitude for motivating him to get in the booth. (Dreamville Records did not respond to Insider's request for comment.)

"This song should live on your channel and serve as a thank you to you and every producer out there cooking up and sharing their work with the world," the message said. "It's a million artists out there right now just like me, hungry and searching every day for something to spark a word, a melody, a hook, a verse, a punchline, a way to vent or a way to CUT THROUGH."

Cole, a seasoned and well-respected producer in his own right, goes on to say he came across the instrumental after randomly searching "J. Cole type beat" on YouTube: "Yours was the first I saw. I pressed play, focused, and wrote this."

The rapper later added: "This is some shit that would normally stay in the vault, but I don't want to hold onto the music like that no more. This is for you and whoever else need to hear it. God bless bro and keep doing what you do."

The 3-minute song that surprised the internet delves into the artist's internal tug-of-war of trying to find inspiration while completing his highly anticipated next album and rapping about substantive topics while maintaining widespread success.

"Every line in there always sticks out to me because it was a letter to somebody that needs to hear something like that," Archer said, adding, "What he did was a genuine and a human thing to do. He's a producer himself, so he understands the process, understands the emotions, the creating process, and the feeling you get when you make a good beat."

"If I ever get to meet him, the first thing I'm going to say is, 'Thank you.'"

'You got to manifest what you want'

Archer credits his work ethic and consistency for being able to produce for hip-hop artists such as J Stone, and most recently French Montana. He also has a few projects of his own released on streaming platforms.

"I went through so much, and I was still just trying to make my music during all the chaos and during all the hardships I've been through throughout the years," he said.

As destiny would have it, in 2021, he released a "beat tape" titled "Dreamers" — a compilation of instrumentals. His message for the project was: "Shine through the darkness, reach for the stars and never give up."

"You got to have faith, you got to work hard, you got to be consistent. You got to manifest what you want. You got to put it out in the world."