Airbit CEO Wasim Khamlichi, Discusses His Love For Music, Creating AirBit New Features + More

Airbit’s mission is to make music more fair with an online marketplace where producers can sell their beats and artists can buy those beats at a fair price. Airbit is one of the most trusted and well-known names in beat-sales. Airbit was founded to champion producers, and offer them a creative career path through licensing, selling their music when they want, how they want. 

The online marketplace is continuing to grow in popularity as more producers are using the internet to generate revenue and get placements.

I got to speak to Airbit CEO Wasim Khamlichi about the origins of the company, how he got involved in music, innovative features + more.

Check out our conversation below.

Wasim’s Love For Music + Creating Airbit

Although Wasim is now living in sunny Los Angeles, his origins start in a small town in the United Kingdom. Growing up, Wasim was extremely skilled with computers and software development. Working for local stores and securing an internship with the UK government. At this job Wasim was invited to an Eminem concert that would change his life forever.

“That moment switched my mindset of what I really wanted to do.”

After that concert Wasim quit his job and enrolled in college to study music technology and learned how to become a producer before enrolling in SAE and learning Audio engineering.

“I saw Eminem coming down in the Ferris wheel in one of the carts & said Oh my God! I want to be in music”.

Wasim’s love for music and “producing” specifically lead to his best creation yet, Airbit. Airbit’s origins can be traced back to 2009. However back then it was called “My Flash Store”. It was originally created as a store for Wasim to get his beats off.

“Living in the south coast of England it’s no music industry opportunity there. The only way I had an opportunity was online.”

Wasim on creating Airbit

After he debuted it on his site, producers began to reach out to see if Wasim could develop one for them.

Wasim was hesitant at first and wanted to keep it exclusive to himself, but so many people were reaching out he developed a service.

“I didn’t really expected it to become what it became, it was a project created in a bedroom in my parents house”.

Fast forward to 2016, My Flash Store was changed to Airbit to represent the future and digital audio.

Airbit is one of the most forward thinking marketplaces out however that came from Wasim’s frustration of producing in an era where producers didn’t receive the credit or get the love we see them get now.

“I found that cutting out the middle man and having producers be able to access artist directly gave them the opportunity to be empowered”

Airbit’s Innovative Features

Airbit has greatly evolved over the years. Recently the company has rolled out 3 new innovative features. YouTube Content ID monetization, their Infinity Store and Playlists.

Airbit is the only beats marketplace that allows its producer members to join YouTube’s ContentID. The ContentID system flags beats that appear in uploaded content and notifies producers, so they can better monetize their work and monitor license terms. The platform’s strong producer focus has led to several global hits as well as uncovered new opportunities.

“Beats can be stolen online and used without permission. This features allows you to find out whose using your beats on YouTube as well as monetize off of it.”

Wasim on Airbit’s YouTube ContentID feature

The Infinity Store is a beat and sound kit store that can double as a full website url for producers. It started as a store that you can embed on your website and you can license your music there. The evolution in the Infinity Store is that you don’t even need to have a website.

The infinity store can be used as it’s own website with a custom domain and have multiple pages to liscence music and sell your sound kits.

Airbit’s latest feature is it’s Playlist. Playlists will showcase the platform’s producers and help them actively engage in the Airbit community.

Airbit’s inaugural curated playlist was released by 3x GRAMMY-winning and multi-platinum producer, Symbolyc One on Thursday May 6th.

Playlists on Airbit come in three flavors: 

• Curated: Airbit and its producer ambassadors will curate playlists of beats
• Collaborative: Airbit will allow users to create their own collaborative playlists 
• Unlisted: Private playlists producers can share, even with people who don’t have an Airbit account

Airbit is definitely the future of music marketplaces and looks to only be getting more popular.