“I am a mom, an entrepreneur and a music lover. I’m the owner of Razdabar Studios. I have many roles, as many small business owners do. I do the scheduling, marketing, accounting, networking…I even clean the toilets. Basically whatever needs to be done,” says Dawn Montgomery. She runs and owns theRazdabar Sound and Management facility. It’s been a massively important place for local Miami Valley musicians, artists from other Ohio cities, and nationally known stars.
“Razdabar is a one stop shop for artists looking to further their music career. Our bread and butter is our recording studio. We have a staff of three talented and highly experienced audio engineers. We also have a photography studio and podcast production studio. Other services offered are videography, photography, graphic design, beat production and music business consulting.”
Montgomery started her career in artist management, which resulted in her meeting her late husband Moe Beats with whom she founded Razdabar Sound & Management. She says, “Once we joined forces, the rest was history.”
If you are in the know when it comes to Dayton’s music industry/community, then you know that Moe Beats (Moses Montgomery) was a very important figure in it. He was a renowned audio engineer with decades of experience. He was also very popular and integral to the Miami Valley’s Hip-Hop scene.
“It was incredibly difficult to survive losing Moe Beats,” says Montgomery. “We supported our family of four solely on Razdabar. When Moe passed [in 2016], I had no engineer to generate any income for the studio, plus the massive studio overhead, and two teenage sons to support…all while grieving deeply. My family had lost so much that I was determined that we not lose anything else so I decided to fight for Razdabar with everything that I had. It was a rough road, but after putting together a team of really great engineers, things have grown from there.”
Montgomery says Razdbar has worked with nationally (and internationally) known music stars including, “Zapp, Mixmaster Ice, Joe, Gucci Mane, Jim Jones, Yung Bleu, Sada Baby and I’m sure several more that I’ve forgotten.”
Another facet of Razdabar is live events, which Montgomery just resumed. “We’ve done quite a few events over the years, but hadn’t done one since pre-covid. My most recent event was an open mic competition which offered a prize package including a single recorded, mixed and mastered at Razdabar, a music video, a photo shoot, graphic design of cover art and promotion of that single. I plan to do another of these events in June.”
Montgomery says that she has a lot of pride in the experience artists have at her studio, “You will always receive the best sound quality at Razdabar. The engineers truly are about the music you are creating and will help you reach your best performance. You will have a professional environment with great energy that will encourage your creativity. You also have the inhouse services of photography, videography, graphic design and artist development available so you can market your music in the most effective way possible.”
