Today we’d like to introduce you to Abundanc3 Beats.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My artist name is ABUNDANC3BEATS. I was born and raised in South Florida, but my family is from Kingston, Jamaica. My love for music started out as a kid. I started piano lessons around five or six years old. Like a lot of kids who start playing at that age, I didn’t care for it much. I wanted to go outside and play with my friends. So the piano began collecting dust. It wasn’t until about 12 years old when I got interested in playing another instrument. That was the guitar. I begged my mom to buy me one and she was very much like “if I buy this for you…you better play it and not waste my money!” But once I made that choice to play I was locked in and have been ever since.
Fast forward to high school, and I tested into a very prestigious, private school in Broward County, receiving an academic scholarship to attend. There I began receiving classical guitar education. We were playing as an ensemble and that was my first time playing with other musicians. But because I already had knowledge of the instrument I was able to skip the first two levels and go straight to Guitar 3 or 4. By the time I graduated, I was in Guitar 8, the highest class our school provided. We were learning to play all different styles, but notably waltz, tango and flamenco styles. Our teacher Mr. Bronco was actually part of a mariachi band! We had our winter and spring concerts every year and certain students were selected to perform solos. I performed a solo my senior year. Even though I knew the piece backwards and forwards, I absolutely got on stage and flubbed it lol. My stage fright is something serious. I also joined a couple of bands outside of school and we played the spring and winter talent shows. One was an indie band where I was playing bass and the other was a metal band where I was playing lead guitar.
Around this same time, I started learning to make beats and rap. I was about 16 at the time. That was the first time I started messing with making my own music. I started producing in FL Studio which was still known as Fruity Loops back then. My cousin had just come from Jamaica and his brother lent him an MPC 1000. He lent it to me for a couple of months and I really started getting into recording myself. He used to spit these crazy freestyles in Jamaican patios. His step-sister and I used to go back and forth. All of us wrote verses together to see whose was the hardest. This was during the height of the YMCMB era, so we all wanted to rap on Wayne and Nicki instrumentals.
After high school, I went on to attend the University of Miami on a full academic scholarship, but I didn’t do much music during this time. The guitar started collecting dust. I graduated in 2015 and began thinking about my next moves. Senior year of college I discovered my love for painting. I took Drawing I and II and had no idea that Drawing II would actually be an abstract painting class. I loved it. When I graduated I began selling paintings to my family and friends and doing commissions. I did that for some years, in the underground Miami art scene from like 2015-2019. While I was painting though I kept meeting artists who were asking for beats. I would tell them I’m not really on that, I’m into painting right now. I didn’t really get back into music until about 2017, I started going to this local open mic and creative space called the Hippie Haven. It’s now gone out of business sadly due to raising rents in Little Haiti, but that’s where I began playing guitar again. I was playing back up to local singers and songwriters at their open mic. I also began recording artists in my home studio in Miramar. Then I began rapping again and working on my own music.
In 2020 when the pandemic hit is when I created the name and brand Abundanc3 and Abundanc3beats. I started my YouTube Channel and have been on this music production and artist journey ever since.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has definitely not been a smooth road. I don’t know any creative person whose life is a direct beeline to success. There were definitely tough times. My father died in 2019, the only thing that kept me going was painting and music. During that same year I began having my own health challenges. My back got injured and I started having searing nerve pain to the point where I couldn’t get out of bed some days. I was walking with a cane on my worst days. It wasn’t until a car accident in 2021 that I was able to get treatment and had a surgery that was successful. I’m now back to full mobility which is a blessing. There was a time that I thought I would fully lose my ability to walk and never be able to be independent. I’m currently living my dream life just being able to walk, go to the gym, ride my bike and skateboard again. God is amazing.
Also growing up queer and alternative in a Caribbean household was no crystal stair. I still feel like the black sheep around some of my family to this day.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I produce music, write, arrange, rap and play guitar. I think all of those are my strong suits, but I think what people most know me for is dependent upon what stage of life they met me in. For those that met me in college or soon after they may remember me for painting. For those that came across my early work on YouTube, they may know me for my series “How to use FL Studio with the Presonus Atom.” For those that met me during the pandemic, they may know me for teaching and playing guitar. For those that found me during my later stages on YouTube, they may know me for my work making sample-based hip-hop on the MPC Live II Retro. They may know my series “Making a Beat in Nature with the MPC Live II.”
Simply put, I’m a creative’s creative. I’m in it for the love of the game. Creating comes to me as naturally as breathing. Without it I very well would probably lose my mind overtime.
What I’m most proud of also has changed through time. I’m proud every time I complete something, even if it doesn’t do crazy numbers. I was proud of my various YouTube series. I was proud when I dropped my first instrumental beat tape. Right now I’m proud of myself for starting a new journey with a new moniker, ABS3NTZ. I’m planning on making it a space exclusively for raps and songs and keeping ABUNDANC3BEATS as a space for my instrumental music and beats.
What sets me apart from others is my worldview. I lived 29 years as a queer, masculine Black woman and now I walk through the world being perceived as a Black man. That in of itself is an expansive viewpoint that most people cannot relate to. I’ve seen the world through many viewpoints. Being trans and non-binary has caused me to have a lot of empathy for both women AND men because I’ve seen both sides of the coin.
So yeah I have an extreme amount of empathy for humanity which is sometimes to my detriment. I definitely see the best in most people and give people a lot of grace…but also once you’ve really crossed me you’re done. It all comes out in my music.
What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
The most important lesson I’ve learned so far is really just to keep going. You really have no idea how one move you make adds up to another and another and builds into this snowball. You may not know until sometimes years down the line. You may think you’re just doing a bunch of random unrelated stuff until one day it all makes sense. That’s the creative journey. Keep pivoting. If something doesn’t work try something else. Don’t stay stuck. Just take the lesson and do something else.
Pricing:
- $200-$500 exclusive beats
Contact Info:
- Website: https://abundanc3beats.bandcamp.com and https://abs3ntz.bandcamp.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/abundanc3beats/ and https://www.instagram.com/abs3ntz.music
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Abundanc3beats and https://www.youtube.com/@Abs3ntz
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/abundanc3beats
