Naysayers of ghost production tend to consistently peddle the same argument that ghost producers never receive anything other than money for their efforts. But Martin Garrix, the world’s number one DJ for 2016, has completely debunked that myth.

From his humble beginnings learning all about production in the famous Herman Brood Academy in Utrecht, Netherlands, Garrix has risen through the ranks at a tremendous pace to become the hottest name in EDM in 2016. His track “Animals” was the first instrumental tune to break into the Billboard Top 40 in the U.S for 13 years, even reaching Platinum status.

He never would’ve achieved such success without ghost production, for it was his work on a huge unnamed track that got him noticed by his former label Spinnin’ Records. As Garrix himself stated in a brief interview with DJMag in 2013, “I can’t tell you which track I made — but this track got signed to Spinnin’ Records and became really big. They found out that I made it, and so they invited me to their office and I played them my other stuff — and we signed.”

Garrix has shown that it’s not only false to assume ghost producers never make it big, butcthey can actually make it to the pinnacle of the EDM industry. By investing his time inconsistently producing new material, and striving to become better at what he does, his talent eventually got recognized by a huge label.

Martin Garrix has also ghost produced other tracks under an alias GRX, including “Can’t You See” with Shermanology, a song that was featured in the hit comedy movie 22 Jump Street. Furthermore, he ghost produced Avicii’s progressive house track “Waiting For Love” in 2015.

Martin Garrix’s success shows that ghost producers who consistently deliver high-quality music will almost invariably get noticed, as was also the case for Maarten Vorwerk. It was the act of producing music for other artists that got Garrix’s foot in the door to becoming the world famous DJ that he is today. Some artists like to avoid the limelight, but for Garrix ghost production provided the stepping stone so that he could make his way into mainstream EDM.

Unsurprisingly for a successful DJ in the modern EDM scene, Garrix has had to fend off accusations that he doesn’t produce his own material. He even took the time to live stream the step by step production process for “Animals”, a track that he has had the melody in his head for since he was 12 years old.

Garrix was also assisted in his career by Vato Gonzalez, a Dutch DJ, who played his material and ensured it received attention from other producers and smaller record labels. But there is no doubting that his ghost production of a chart hit was the key turning point for Garrix, and it provided the catalyst for his meteoric rise to global fame in 2014.

Martin Garrix’s story just goes to show that the skeptical opinions pointing towards ghost production being a limiting factor in the development of DJ’s careers are plain wrong. By investing his time in solely producing, mostly for other artists, Garrix himself became a worldwide success.