Today we’d like to introduce you to Carmine Prophets.
Hi Carmine, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
My name is Sunil Rajan better known as Carmine Prophets. I’ve been making beats for about 15 years now and I’ve been DJing for about 8 years. I got my start at making beats by actually being a video guy for a rapper friend of mine when I was in high school, I always had a passion for music but I only had been doing film and media work from a young age because of my older brother doing film when I was growing up. I always had an interest in making beats, hearing beats from people like Kanye, Timbaland and Pharrell in the mainstream world always inspired me as a kid saying “I want to learn how to do that” but I didn’t have any equipment or family member that had an interest in making beats. Growing up my dad played the tabla and he had an SPD drum pad, so from an early age I always had an interest in beating on percussive pads that trigger a sound, you can say the early learnings of rhythm and percussion were instilled in me since I was born, its something I don’t even know how I learned I think its just in my DNA. I always wanted a drum machine once I saw Kanye premiere a song on a music award show on TV, he had the MPC out when the show started, I had only seen the SPD for a drum pad so when i saw the MPC for the first time, it immediately clicked in my head. You see, I was also the kid in class that used to beat on the table and make sounds with my voice to try and “make a beat” while aspiring rappers would try and freestyle, me and my friends would do this at school or whatever location just because we thought it was fun. I for sure could not afford an MPC or ask my parents to get me one because they were too expensive, so i started researching softwares to make beats. Once I started high school I wanted to make start making beats on a professional level, at the time I was listening to artists like Tyler, the creator who inspired me to download logic and start making beats. After making a bunch of terrible sounding beats I then got lured into more producer centric music from people like, J Dilla, Madlib and DJ Premier. Throughout high school I pretty much tried to make a beat everyday since, and after about a year and a half of making beats I then made the switch to Ableton, from there I was able to figure out how to maximize my ideas in the software. Then it’s just been off to the races ever since. I started Djing from honestly just playing music at parties and people saying that I should try and DJ like a real one, once I started doing it the right way I started getting booked all the time after that, and just been getting better ever since. After Djing for about 6 years I then got put into the world of playback engineering through my good friend Ron Gilmore, he had showed me what big scaled shows do when they need to run tracks., I spent alot of time researching and trial and error but once I got it down, my live show setup had became on point, I became very dialed when it came to playing shows. I had always done the normal DJ way when djing for artists, but when I figured how to run playback, it had taken me to another level of Djing as well as having another skill under my belt. From there on Ron had put me in the right rooms and had put me on a full North America tour with Bas from Dreamville records. Since then Ive Djed for people like J. Cole, Cozz, Ab-Soul, Saba, Earthgang, Omen, The Hics and more. We had also done a tour with the UK band Jungle as us as the opening act, through that I was able to perform at amphitheater’s like The Hollywood Bowl (LA), Moody Theatre (ATX), Coca Cola Roxy (ATL) and others in the country. I have always performed overseas in places like Paris, London and Amsterdam. Its been a trip doing all these things now just from beating on a desk as a kid and playing music at parties
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Its definitely hasn’t been the smoothest road to get to where i’m at now, any one who does music and it’s been an easy journey, man I envy you, because I don’t think its easy for creative people to have a normal life doing what we do. Some of my struggles has been with money, health, and relationships. One, is that you have to spend alot of time to get good at this to where people are willing to pay you for your services, but that time is along time, the 10,000 hour rule is a real thing, and with me putting in my 10,000 hours, there was only minimal amount of money from me getting normal jobs and paying rent and bills while doing music. I ate ramen almost everyday in my early 20’s just to stretch out my budget not only to live but to invest in equipment to better the music. Its been nice now to where I don’t have to rely on things like ramen, grilled cheeses and the dollar menu just to get through the day. When putting your 10,000 hours in theres a lot of sacrifices you tend to make towards relationships, it could friends, family, or a significant other, but with the large amount of time you have to tend to something you end up missing a lot of birthdays, holidays and family gatherings that people with a normal 9-5 job don’t have to worry about, but with this type of lifestyle and career, you have to act when the call comes. Even now how this lifestyle is I might get a text or a call tomorrow morning about a gig or a session that will have to be attended to a short moments notice. But, I will say that if you can get through all these struggles and humps and still stay consistent, it will benefit you in the long run, because even though I would’ve struggled less by being more realistic and working normal office jobs, I would’ve not been happy in the long run not being able to do what I love to do.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’d say Im known for producing and djing but now Im getting more known for my video work now. I had always had a passion for film and have been making videos while doing music full time, but now after moving to LA recently I am now doing more work with videos. Its been great too, I really just picked up this camcorder about a year ago because I wanted more authentic edits for nightlife and gigs, but now I realized that owning a camera and the ability to do edits can get you pretty far out here. Film has always been something i’ve been passionate about so now when I make edits for people who hire me hire me for that service its been more fun than work. To be honest, back then I used to hate editing, only because of technical issues and the fatigue that it used to give me to get a good end product, but now it 2026 theres a ton of new tools and features that make editing a lot more easier now that what it used to be like. Since ive started doing more edits after moving here I’ve been getting co singed and approach by other artists to do more work, and though that ive been able to work on music with them as well as video direction and just an all around creative, I can say I wasn’t expecting things like this to happen this fast after moving to LA. After doing videos I found that I love the full creative control of visuals and music combined, I always loved it but now I feel like I can edit and modify more aspects to an art project that how I used to do. Now i’ve been more inspired and excited to make art because Im able to do it in my direction while reaching my full potential.
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
People who want to collaborate or work with me would be to just contact me in any way really. Through phone, email or social media DM. Im very open right now to working with everybody especially after just moving to a new city, ive very prepared and ready to do all the groundwork. People can also support just by following me or listening to the music ive produced thats been release and been prepared for the next releases. People can also support me by pulling up to anywhere that I DJ, that could be support for me but it really could be support for anyone just by coming to one of my sets you might hear something you haven’t heard yet and discover some new music, or if you just want to have a good time and dance you can heal that way too. I am always grateful for people who support me and I love supporting people as well, as a producer and a creative director I love helping out people in anyways that I can.
Pricing:
- pricing varies with each service
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carmineprophets
- Twitter: https://x.com/carmineprophets
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@carmineprophets
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/carmineprophets
Image Credits
Seth Endelman (Jah Frida)
Diya Sharma
