Meet the Black Entrepreneur Who Made $500K Writing, Selling Rap Songs on Fiverr

Mike Burton, a rapper and entrepreneur from Texas also known as Keybeaux, is earning over $82,000 a year writing raps that he sells on Fiver, a popular freelancer site. For nearly seven years, he racked up more than $500,000 from all his commissions.

 

Mike, who has a degree in communications from the University of Houston, has always loved writing. In 2015, when he saw that writing customized raps can be offered on Fiverr, he decided to do it. However, he felt demotivated when he received his first request asking to make a song about how it's okay to listen to Eminem, which he said sounded like a term paper and not a rap.

 

A year later, Mike, who was then working at a call center, decided to try doing some freelance work on Fiverr again. He offered to make 30-second verses for $5 each and it gradually became in demand. By December 2016, he left his job to focus more on his commissions, which now usually cost up to $560 each.

More than making money, the 38-year-old rapper said what he loves the most is helping people express themselves through rap. He writes and produces songs for companies, businesses, podcasts, and YouTube channels, as well as personalized love songs and birthday songs. But it shouldn't involve anything about violence and profanity, saying he's not interested in requests like that.

"I'm acting as a conduit for your ideas," Burton told CNBC.

Mike says that he definitely enjoys what he is doing and that he can actually write a verse in just 30 minutes. But it doesn't mean that he doesn't run out of creative juices at times. And when that happens, he says that he just takes a break by making his own original music that he releases on music platforms under his stage name Keybeaux.

"I'll have no energy for anyone else if I don't make my own stuff," he said.

Be sure to follow Mike on Instagram @keybeaux or hire him direct on his Fiverr page.