Meet Aubrey Pompey of Pompey Productions

Today we’d like to introduce you to Aubrey Pompey.

Aubrey, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I was put into piano lessons at the age of three and have been involved with music in different ways since then. Being a part of band as a trumpet player, a song and dance group in middle school called Kennedy On Stage, to being part of an amateur singing group with a couple of friends in college. I was always immersed in it. In 2001, a high school friend of mine asked if I wanted to be in a rap group with him and a couple of other guys. He had discovered this program called FruityLoops (now FL Studio) and had started making beats. I said yes and we started making songs. I wanted to make some of my own beats, so I downloaded FL Studio myself and learned how to work the program.

When we first started, we were recording on a CD recorder, so we only had two takes to get an entire song recorded directly on a CD track. Eventually, we graduated to Cool Edit (Now Adobe Audition) and I started learning more and more about actual recording and putting a song together. After a few years, I realized that I wasn’t a rapper and I was more intrigued by actually producing music, creating instrumentals, and recording. I still made my own songs for practice, but I was geared towards music production. Around 2008, a gentleman came into town looking for me and heard my work. He advised me to take a course in Atlanta at Tree Sound School of Sound at Tree Sound Studios. I wanted to take the course, but I was residing in South Carolina at the time, so I wasn’t sure how I would make it happen. I eventually just decided to travel the 3-hour drive every day to the studio and come back home the same day to make it to my job.

I ended up totaling my car about six weeks in, but fortunately my parents let me borrow theirs to continue going. I graduated and once I had completed that, the gentleman, Larry Fridie, became my manager. He then introduced me into his network of people that he knew in Atlanta. I also connected with Grammy Award Winning producer, Tedd T, in Nashville. We collaborated on three tracks for the album “Dangerous” By KJ-52. I’ve also collaborated with producer/artist J-Soul aka Burroughs T and worked with Kenny Kold formerly of the group C-Side. After a few years of continuing my work as a music producer, I was hired on as a senior producer/engineer at XRO Studios in Trenton, SC, where I’m currently working at today.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It definitely hasn’t been a smooth road. There have been many trials and errors: Investing in artists that seem to be serious in the beginning but end up falling off one way or another, going through long spans of time with no income coming in from creating music, dealing with people speaking negatively about the things I was trying to do with my life, I’ve even had people break into my studio a couple of times when it was in my home, Everything was a learning experience and all of it has helped me reach the place that I’m in today.

Pompey Productions – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
My company Pompey Productions, is my own music production company. I specialize in creating instrumentals for hip hop, r&b, and pop music. My style is very eclectic. What separates me from others is that I’m able to take elements from different genres and mesh them together to give a different flavor to my music. I’m proud of a lot of my accomplishments, but I think that I’m most proud of being in a position to give education and information to producers that are in a position that I was in when I first started.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Success to me is reaching my own personal goals. First, I want to be true to myself in ALL interactions, not just music interactions. I uphold myself to my own standards and allow others to hold themselves up to their own. Second, I define success as making a living and creating generational wealth with my passion and purpose. I look to see how I can generate those two things with my music. That means I have to continuously learn how the music business works and where I can insert myself in order to be wealthy for myself and my future family and children.