Pr3pE – Recording Artist

Pr3pE – Essence Carson Recording Artist

“When you’re a kid, you always want to be a lawyer or astronaut,” Carson says. “But I wanted to be Stevie Wonder in the 5th grade.” Essence became enamored with the piano at an early age and received instruction on the instrument from her grandmother shortly after. However, her adoration for basketball began to bloom the following year. “I didn’t start playing basketball for an organized team until the 6th grade.” Unbeknownst to her at the time, she would spend the rest of her days striking a skillful balance between her affinity for music and basketball. “Ever since I was young, those two always went hand in hand.”

By her early teens, Essence made the decision to pursue music as her main interest. She was accepted to the Rosa L. Parks School of the Fine and Performing Arts where she majored in piano and minored in instrumental. Though she felt at home amongst her artistically inclined classmates, there was one fundamental problem: “My performing arts high school didn’t have any athletic programs.” Her remarkable talent enabled her to join the girls’ basketball team at nearby Eastside High School (immortalized in film by the 1989 motion picture Lean On Me).

Though Essence has spent countless hours sharpening her prowess on the court over the years, she never lost sight of her first love: music. In addition to being a multi-instrumentalist (piano, drums, bass, guitar, and saxophone), she is a burgeoning music producer proficient in several professional digital audio and recording applications. “I’ve always been involved in music production,” she admits. “I started in high school, but didn’t get serious about that until college. My college years consisted of basketball practice for several hours a day, going to class, and working on my music on my setup in my dorm room. Once I graduated from college and began my professional career as an athlete, it allowed more time for me to focus on production.”

At the moment, Essence is working on music production for various acts such as Australian pop artist Josh Jakq and has joined ranks with Futuristic Lingo, the production team of up and coming Brooklyn-via-Palm Beach hip-hop artist Young Future. She is also cultivating material for her own prospective debut release as a hip-ho artist under the name Pr3pE (pronounced “Preppy”). It’s apparent that Essence’s gifts are simply too dynamic to be contained in any singular categorical box. “This way the whole world can see the full range of my talent.”

With such brimming promise in the future of her young athletic career and musical endeavors, Essence refuses to subscribe to the age-old adage “the sky is the limit.”

At the same, she’s mindful that her spectacular trajectory is the product of a die-hard work ethic spiked with dedication and a dash of balance. “I just learned to nurture my love for music and basketball one day at a time,” she states simply. “I always strived to be the best athlete and the best musician that I could be at the time. It seems like that formula works for me, because it proved successful.” Even with all her successes and accolades firmly in hand, she has never forgotten her roots. After all, she realizes that they are responsible for the woman she has become. “I grew up surrounded by people that made me believe that I had everything in the world, even though there was a fair amount of struggle. I’m still thankful for that. It motivates me. My city still motivates me.”