TuPAW Shakur! Meet the LA hip-hop producer who makes music for cats, dogs and even hamsters and has become the first all-pet musician to land a multi-million dollar recording contract

With a billion streams you are in the same league as musicians like Drake, Taylor Swift and Harry Styles.

But one producer has achieved this milestone by focusing on four-legged, furry listeners instead of humans.

Speaking from Los Angeles: Amman Ahmed tells DailyMail.com that he introduced the idea of ​​music for pets through a YouTube channel, where he played songs and listened to feedback from dog owners until he created music that really relaxed the animals.

He tapped into a post-pandemic trend in which separation anxiety in pets worsened as animals became accustomed to spending so much time with their work-from-home owners.

The pioneering dog musician now offers dozens of playlists to relax cats and dogs, and says his “creative process” is driven by his four-legged listeners themselves.

Hip-hop fan Ahmed said: ‘I initially started making music for people to help with insomnia – and a friend joked: ‘Let me try that on the dog.’

To start with, Ahmed’s approach was to ‘experiment and come up with ideas’, but mainly to rely on feedback from dog owners about what worked and what didn’t.

“When we started, there was only a little bit of scientific research on it,” he said. “So the songs we made, some worked, and some didn’t. But we got the basic idea: ‘Okay, maybe there’s something here.’

“We started producing different frequencies, different types of music, and most importantly, we gathered as much information as possible from the dog owners and the dogs that use them, and learn from there.

He said: ‘This is purely focused on how we can have a positive impact on the lives of a cat and dog. And as long as that is central, we can build around it.

‘Then we started getting reports that music was the only thing that could help dogs with their anxiety – and that even certain songs helped. We continued to build from there.”

His company, Music For Pets, was acquired by US-based Create Music Group following a surge in popularity for animal playlists, with Create now planning to invest $10 million in the company and its Relax My Dog and Relax brands My Cat.

Some dogs enjoy Music for Pets’ music so much that they rely on it every day to relax — and one dog even had a song played at his funeral, Ahmed said.

Music For Pets has playlists for cats and dogs (and has experimented with making music for guinea pigs and hamsters) and Ahmed said users rely on it to deal with dogs’ separation anxiety, or when taking the animal to the vet.

The company has received feedback from owners who say the music can help with everything from depression in dogs to hyperactivity in cats.

He says the company now has “super fans” who rely on the music to calm their animals.

He said: ‘We got a message saying, ‘My dog ​​really loved this song. It was the only thing that helped them with anxiety for years, and my dog ​​recently passed away. Can I use the music for our dog’s funeral as a reminder?’ That really left me speechless.’

The company has experimented with using sounds that only animals can hear, but mainly tries to create music that both dogs and people will enjoy.

Ahmed said: ‘It’s always split down the middle because the dog and the human are both going to consume it, knowing that if the human consumes it and the human is relaxed, that energy is also transferred to the dog. We always had both in mind.”

Subscriptions to the service cost $4.99 per month, and more than 42 million animals have tuned in, the company says.

The service offers music and videos tailored to dogs and cats (Music for Pets)

Cats are difficult customers, Ahmed admits (Alamy)

The company also makes videos focused on cats and dogs, and has now shot videos in locations including Los Angeles, Barbados and Portugal (some in the form of ‘virtual walks’) and others using drone footage.

Ahmed says that making music that dogs respond to is relatively easy, but entertaining cats is a much more difficult job (and it’s also difficult to know if cats are even enjoying the music).

He said: ‘Cats are a very, very difficult audience. We took the same approach with Relax My Cat, but there is a lot more to it, because you never really have a cat, and of course they are also very stubborn.’

‘We have done some experimenting with guinea pigs, hamsters and rabbits, but that is even more difficult.’

He says he now hopes to expand his team, create more content and forge new partnerships.

He said, “The lives of the pets that we’ve touched, those stories, I always like to keep that idea at the forefront of my mind, knowing that’s the impact we’re having. I’m a dog lover myself.’

Ahmed says he previously launched a music company (for humans) in his native Britain, which failed, which taught him many lessons and shaped the approach he took with Music for Pets.

He said: “I grew up in not the best environment, and I managed to get through university and somehow start a business.

‘If you grow up in a rough environment it can go one of two ways: it can have a negative impact, or you can take the positive out of all the negative experiences and it ultimately helps you to have a positive outlook on life.’