Rapper Ryan Leslie recently had a laptop that contained all of his rap music stolen. The laptop in question was lifted from the singer’s Mercedes while he was touring in Cologne, Germany. The rapper’s security detail left the vehicle to escort the singer into a nightclub and a bag containing the laptop and $10,000 in cash and Leslie’s US passport was swiped while the car was unattended.

Reward Offered For Laptop’s Return

The MacBook laptop contained all of the singer’s music, plus other projects that he planned to distribute later this year and early next year. Initially, the singer offered a reward of $20,000 for the return of his laptop and hard drive, but increased it to a cool million in the hope that the materials would be returned. The theft did not impact the rapper’s tour schedule, and he will make planned appearances in France, Belgium, Holland, Germany and England.

The reward demonstrates quite neatly how important the computer has become in making beats! Many musicians today work with computers more than they do with instruments. The computer is fundamental to the way rap musicians and hip-hop artists make beats. The loss of a computer can be devastating because it not only makes your music, but also stores what you’ve already done.

The painful and expensive lesson being taught here is that when you make your beats on a computer, as many of today’s top musicians do, make a backup plan for your work. Your computer or laptop should not be the only place in which your music and your work is stored.

You can replace your programs easily enough. Programs like Sonic Producer are available for download. If you lose your copy, you can simply download another one. Your music, however, is yours. You make it; you store it. It only makes sense to protect the work you’ve done.

With Sonic Producer, you can export your beats to MP3. Once your music is exported, you can share it with friends, transfer it to an MP3 player or make a library of your very own beats. However you make copies of your work, be sure to store at least one copy in a safe place. With the ability to export to MP3, you can store your completed works on CD or DVD. You can also upload your beats to an online backup storage service. That way, your beats will be available to you no matter where you are.
Photo Credit: WeeklyDig, via Flickr