Artist bio: Carsten2x
Bursting out of the unsuspecting Dublin suburb of Shankill comes Carsten2x, a bedroom producer who’s creating some of the most refreshing sounds to emerge from the Emerald Isle in recent memory. A beatmaker, singer, rapper and mogul in the making, his holistic approach to musical creation means Carsten2x can never be pigeonholed; “I don’t even know what to classify it as,” he says of his sound. “I just call it Carsten music.”
His new single and video “Beaucoup” is the clearest example of his unique stylings yet. Co-produced with Chuks Chiejine (Brockhampton, Burna Boy), “Beaucoup” incorporates live instrumentation including flutes and keys that Carsten then masterfully chopped and made into his own. Encouraged by Chucks, Carsten pushed himself to add a second verse to the song, staying up into the wee hours of the morning in his grandmother’s spare room writing and recording until he had what calls his “favourite verse yet.”
The final product is a bouncing sunshine bop full of chopped acoustic tones and whispering flute melodies that finds him fronting up to a girl. His affable and personable character is on display as he describes trying to impress her, only to get knocked back. Rather than recede into himself, Carsten dreams about what the future has in store for him; TV performances, a Mercedes Benz and “my wrist on froze and my neck too cold” from all the jewelry he’ll one day have.
“I wanted a way to say I’ll one day be selling out shows, having plaques and being successful in music,” he says. “I found a way to phrase it, where it’s about stuff I don’t have yet, but this is what I’m going to have. I want beaucoup, and if I don’t get it then I’m going to go Goku. I tried to write the verses like a conversation with a girl who’s not fucking with me now, but I’m like ‘Oh well, wait and see.’”
The video charts this ascent, flipping between reality and fantasy. One minute it finds him in a lowly kitchen job, getting rejected by a girl, the next he’s performing at Dublin’s beloved venue Whelan’s and being showered in roses. While it focuses on his future ambitions, true to form it also finds Carsten paying tribute to his father by riding his bright green Vespa and acknowledging his Mod background – an important personal touch. “He may not understand the music I make,” Carsten says, “but he’s my number one supporter.”
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Although he may have world domination in his sights, Carsten2x’s persona and music are strongly rooted in the foundations provided by his family and their history. This is reflected in his moniker; Carsten is his middle name, given to him by his Danish mother in tribute to her departed brother, who now looks over the young musician as his “guardian angel”. 2x is a reference to Dublin, the Irish capital he now calls home and from which his father hails.
He also has his parents to thank for sparking his musical education. While only hobbyists themselves – his father a drummer while his mother played some mandolin – they always encouraged his infatuation. During his teens, the family car’s CD changer was usually loaded with albums by Carsten’s latest discoveries: artists like 50 Cent, Green Day and Usher, which made an interesting counterpoint to his dad’s selections of Bob Marley and mod classics like The Beat and The Specials. It’s from this foundation that he builds his genreless creations today.
It was in his late teens when he fell into the wormhole of Soundcloud rap and soon felt inspired to start making his own beats. He initially picked it up from YouTube tutorials but quickly graduated to his own originals, which is the main fuel for his musical fire. “I make beats every single day, just because I don’t know how else to spend my time,” he says. Although he got his first cheques from selling these beats, he quickly moved on from that as he wanted to be seen as “more than just a producer”.
It wasn’t long before Carsten had discovered his voice – a golden hum that manages to retain the Irish brogue even while his accent sits somewhere mid-Atlantic. Able to slide easily between singing and rapping, his dominant bear hug vocal ability is an immediate clarion call to anybody within earshot.
The discovery of his vocal prowess was a revelation for the young musician. However, for his sister, who shares the adjacent bedroom, that was a no-go after 11pm when she needed to sleep – but often that would be when Carsten was just getting into his groove. Previously he would pack up his entire rig head into his granny’s house next door, “it’s funny because it’s a real cottage type house and I’m there in the middle of the night rapping and singing as loud as I can, because she’s a little bit deaf.” Now, though, he’s set up a studio in the shed in his back garden, where he can spend all day and night plotting and producing his next moves, which is exactly what he intends to do: “Sometimes I’ll stretch it out because I know I’m going to be miserable as soon as I finish the song, because I won’t have anything I’m committed to.”
With his sound still under constant evolution, he now looks to modern musicians like Smino, Duckwrth, Saba and Frank Ocean as the guiding lights, but with his own Irish point of view. Whether he’s trying to impress a girl, unravelling his anxieties, or just dreaming of being somewhere sweeter, there’s never a shortage of ideas flowing from his fertile mind. “Music is just my whole life,” he says. “I spend every single day either making beats, watching videos about music, watching tutorials, watching old videos of Kanye in the studio… I actually don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t do music.”
A quick glimpse at his Instagram or TikTok gives a clear idea of how irrepressibly productive he is. He’s found a new outlet for his overflowing creativity by posting nearly daily freestyles over TikTok hits such as Sad Alex’s “Itty Bitty Titty Committee” and several of Joey Briggs’ instrumentals, his dextrous voice finding a natural slipstream between these varying sounds. “I follow a lot of music creators on TikTok, and if I find something cool and soulful I usually try to write some lyrics,” he says. “I feel I have more freedom with structure, which I enjoy.”
Having already graduated from his bedroom to his granny’s spare room to his shed studio, the only way is up for Carsten2x. At this point, his biggest dreams are to work with Kenny Beats and have a song on the FIFA soundtrack – and, if he can, make enough money to help his dad retire. For now though, his focus remains on just the day to day grind of creation. “I don’t see my life being happy in any way if I’m not doing music,” he says. “I couldn’t do anything else.”
