Starting from square one

As the title says I am starting from square one. I have a bit of time on my hands so I am wanting to gather information and help from the more experienced here. So if you do not mind sparing a few minutes to do so it would be MUCH appreciated.

I have the MPC 2000xl which I have bought a few years ago. I have tried playing around with it after I read the manual. A pretty awesome machine id say lol. But I was wondering when I watch people using it on youtube they have a keyboard hooked to it or something, also i believe have they have a little machine on the side that uses disks to save. I know regular computer disks do not hold that much ( tried it lol). So I am wondering what things i may need to get started a little better.

Any Suggestions or ideas would be much appreciated

You can hook up a CF card reader instead of floppies. Though I'm not sure if they're still available for the 2kXL anymore, try ebay and other second hand markets or mpcstuff.com.

As for keyboards, well most likely those producers are sampling the sounds in or they have the MPC triggering sounds from the keyboard and sync'd to the MPC sequencer via MIDI.

If I were you, I would get monitors and learn to beat and mix within the box. That way you'll learn and know its capabilities and limitations. When you feel its time to step up to a DAW or something, you'll have an understanding of how you want your beats to sound and have direction instead of buying a bunch of stuff and just staring at it... like Jah.