Strivin for a Buck record label makes strides in Castroville.

A bass-heavy beat slips through the open door of The Oasis Recording Studio and out to the quiet air of Castroville’s isolated industrial district. Business for the recycling plant nearby winds down on this weekend night, but for the artists of Strivin for a Buck record label, the work has just begun.

Behind the blank business front, visitors enter to find a studio decked out with leather sofas lit with neon along the bottom, a digital audio workstation with production boards and a spotless window separating one side of the room from the foam-padded vocals booth.

With the music so loud it vibrates bones, Darrell Sostand, who raps under the name Dyce Shakin, spins himself on an office chair while shaking his dreadlocks to a track from his recently released album, Blue Hunnids. Ryan Timothy Achas, producer of the infectious instrumental that carries Sostand’s rugged verse, also nods happily.

“Daaamn man,” Sostand laughs. “This beat goes hard.”

Three years ago, Achas, who produces as Cuddi on the Beat, moved from Salinas to Los Angeles to pursue music production. He eventually earned a record deal with Warner Brothers, and is now signed to Atlantic Records. In his time under major labels, Achas has produced for popular rappers like YG and E-40, in addition to making radio-friendly hits that reached Billboard charts.

Now, he’s showing love to local music by serving as Strivin for a Buck’s in-house producer.

“This area has always had artists, but we’ve had nothing poppin’ as a scene,” Achas says. “I wanted to bring some of that Billboard L.A. sound back here.”

Achas goes on Soundcloud to play tracks from the New Wave EP by Dyce Shakin. “Sometimes I still don’t believe it’s me,” Sostand says. “Cuddi’s production made me step up my game, it makes everything sound more professional.”

Sostand has been rapping for nearly a decade, but he sees his future with the small label as a brighter chapter. It started in 2009, when Sostand met Joe Klotz, the label’s manager. Sostand and his uncle Tone Alexander were working for Klotz’s Pacific Grove business, Big Angelo’s Plumbing and Heating. Sostand and Alexander had a vision for a record label, and Klotz had the business experience and financial support to make it a reality.

“I saw talent in all these guys,” Klotz says. “I knew they could go further if they just had some support.”

Klotz began recruiting for the label’s roster of rhymers. Cisko Price, owner of Oasis Recording Studio, introduced Klotz to Jose Heredia IV, a Salinas musician who goes by Teq.

Heredia traces his interest in music to childhood. “I grew up with old school like Earth Wind and Fire playing in the house,” he says.

Today he plays drums, violin, trumpet and piano and holds an associate degree in recording arts. Though his skills are versatile, Heredia says he’s most often asked to sing. His drawling melodies often carry choruses that contrast the fast-paced, menacing rhymes from label mates like Dyce and Casper Loc.

Casper, now 34, a Gonzalez native named Robert Irachetta, has been rapping the longest out of the label’s artists. At 16, he picked up a pen in juvenile hall and began writing.

“I was listening to a lot of rap like 2Pac and NWA,” Irachetta says. “I knew my area had a story to tell, we just hadn’t had our shot.”

That comes through in Irachetta’s music, like his verse for “Stop Snitching” off Blue Hunnids: “John Steinbeck wrote about mice and men, but I’ve seen grown men turn to mice in the pen.”

From 2006-09, Irachetta released roughly 40 songs, some of which garnered hundreds of thousands of YouTube views while he was incarcerated. He never took music seriously enough to consider recording an album, but his dad pushed him to work harder.

“My dad believed in me even when I couldn’t,” Irachetta says. “He really thought I could make it to the point of getting a record deal. So here I am now, finally confident in my music.”

That newfound confidence is a sentiment Sostand can identify with.

“We’ve all been making music for a while, but now that we’re in a group and constantly collaborating, we’re at our peaks,” he says.

The next project for Strivin is a debut album by Irachetta, Validated.

On another evening, the label’s artists and manager lounge on leather sofas and watch Irachetta in the booth. In a black beanie and black T-shirt, his lighter complexion is nearly consumed by the black foam padding on the walls around him.

Price plays an instrumental on the computer and Irachetta pulls out a cellphone to read lyrics. With a phone in one hand and a tall can in the other, Irachetta methodically moves his head and spits his story.