Kyler Mathis, 26, was raised in Watonga and graduated from WHS in 2017. He took some college classes at Northern Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Southwestern before coming back to Watonga in 2019. That is about as close to standard as Kyler Mathis ever got.
In 2019, he started to follow his heart and passion for music and got started beat making and producing under the name K10Beatz.
Beat making is an electronically provided segment for musicians that they may incorporate into their own compositions. Mathis makes them using a keyboard and a laptop. He is self-taught, learning by experimentation and watching other artists and YouTube clips.
The beats, which last about 2 to 21/2 minutes, are posted on his social media pages and on Beat Stars, a platform where they can be purchased.
That’s not all, though. Mathis also sells on Vinyl, Apple Music and Spotify, basically anywhere beats can be purchased.
Those snippets of music have been included in multiple albums on Billboard, a listing service of the top selling music inmultiple genres.
Mathis has more than 30 entries on which his work appears on the Billboard lists, including three # No. 1 albums that have either gone gold – selling 500,000 units or platinum, meaning it has sold more than one million units. A unit is considered physical sales, streamed or downloaded sales.Those albums included for the artist Youngboy Never Broke Again, the single I Hate Youngboy and for the same artist on the album The Last Slimeto.
More recently, Mathis produced a song for Yunglud, an English singer-songwriter, that is rapidly climbing the charts. He has been invited to many concerts and studio sessions, and his influences and listening preferences are very eclectic, including everything from Michael Jackson to Bilie Eilish.
Michelle Mathis and grandson of Loretta Mathis, and his family is musical. His uncles are the Hampton Brothers and he grew up going to church with his grandmother and hearing music there. He always had an ear for music and his family background, he said, developed that ear.
“If it sounds good and it’s in key, it will go,” he laughed.
Mathis did not disclose how much selling beats is bringing in, but he did say he was keeping a roof over his head and his lights on. He also has a pretty sweet ride. He currently lives in Yukon.
The message Mathis is hoping to drive home to other kids growing up in small town U.S.A. is that this kind of work can be done from anywhere with an internet connection.
“You can do this, even coming from a small town,” he said. “You have millions of people as an audience.”
What is he hoping for longer-term?
He wants to stay in the music business, as an independent artist, and his plans include creating sync placements for movies and game tracts. He is considering starting his own studio, and he might also return to school and complete a degree in cyber security.
And as if gold and platinum records to his name aren’t enough, Kyler Mathis wants one day to see his name on the list of Grammy nominees and winners.