Meet Carson Ulmer of Nashville, TN

Today we’d like to introduce you to Carson Ulmer

Hi Carson, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I’ve always loved art and creation in general. It mainly started off as me drawing when I was very young—it probably started off as simple figures and structures, but I then ventured into drawing my favorite characters, making some short, nonsensical comics, and eventually doing portraits of people. I really dove into drawing portraits more around the time I became fixated on music, so I have some older portraits of Miles Davis, Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, Eminem, and Earl Sweatshirt. They weren’t always the best or didn’t turn out as realistic as I’d like/how I wanted them to (a running theme in my creative endeavors), but I enjoyed the process of drawing. I was getting heavily into rap music from a combination of my own findings and by coming across some more mainstream artists that my older sisters would listen to (shout out to sharing an iTunes). Music was an escape for me. I played sports a lot from my very early years until the end of eighth grade (mainly basketball), and as my interest for playing them competitively faded, I started shifting my focus to writing raps and general lyrics. I got to a point where I would carry around a stack of folded paper and pens to jot down some bars and ideas I had while listening to beats. My ears and wired headphones were very well acquainted. It wasn’t until my 14th birthday that I officially decided to take some of my money and buy Logic Pro X, an audio interface, and some monitors to officially start making music. Using my own curiosity and good old YouTube University, I started learning how to produce and engineer music that I could rap on. Now, I’ve been making music for coming up on 10 years. Since I had a background in art, I would create my own album covers and promotional pieces of content (graphics and videos) for my releases. Since I’ve still been doodling over the years, I came up with some additional concepts I liked, at one point making a drawing that I titled “Think Outside Your Box.” It was a very simple sketch, but I enjoyed it. That was the first draft for the logo of what would be my future LLC that I’m now using to run all of my creative services through.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Is everything smooth sailing? Naaaaahhh haha. That’s how it is or can be though no matter the circumstances. Thankfully, I grew up with a very loving and supportive family, so in that aspect, I am fortunate enough to not have much of a struggle. Most of my tumult has come through my own depression, anxieties, and lack of self confidence over the years. I was very shy at times (and still can be), but I could still let my jocularity shine through if I felt like I needed to satiate my hunger as a somewhat attention seeking youngest child. For some reason, I’ve always felt out of place. No matter how much love I was given by my family, I don’t think I was able to love myself. Super cool and epic dark moment there, but it has been a sizable portion of my journey. My outlook, when it came to certain things, was not always the best. I was and still can be very hard on myself. Instead of choosing to be more optimistic in times of turbulence, I guess it felt easier or more appropriate to think about the negatives. Perspective is an integral thing to have when walking through life. Although bad habits can make it hard to shift perspective sometimes, we have a choice in how we let our emotions dictate our thoughts and reactions. For me it’s been a slow climb, but stability can call for a steady pace.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I mainly produce, engineer, rap, and sing. I used to put music out under my personal name, but I recently decided to rebrand to “Carbon” for all of my new music. Because of an old distributor problem, some of my music under my personal name was removed, so I don’t have as much up on that page as I used to. Under my new alias, I started with my first single “Foreward (feat. shane arnold)” and have my self-titled album “Carbon” coming out on 3/28/2025. In the past few years, I’ve started to do more engineering for other people, mainly mixing and/or mastering for some artists’ projects and songs like Lucas Batten, BBOY ZERO, Breeo, Lauryn Marie, and Sophia Joelle. Since that has become more of an option for me, I started my LLC to run my creative services through. My plan is to eventually start putting more of my visual art out there, especially exploring more of clothing design. Right now the main focus is the music though, especially building my new artist page. Similarly, eventually my roommate, Miles Wallace, and I will be moving to Atlanta to start up a studio and event space for like-minded creatives. Once we get the music aspect up and running, we are going to expand on providing some visual content for others, as well as a space for people to show their work and collaborate with others. It’s important to have some visuals to supplement the music, whether it be pictures or videos, so we feel it makes sense to provide artists with as much as we can. This will be a good opportunity to improve upon my visual creation skills. I’m overall proud of my ability to create whatever I set my mind to, both for myself and others. Helping others bring their ideas to fruition is one of the many joys in the creative field.

Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
I think open-mindedness and compassion is pertinent for both personal and collaborative purposes. Having an open mind can expose you to a lot of cool opportunities that may not have come if you’re caught up in your own perspective. There are a lot of very cool, talented people with inspiring and interesting ideas in this world. You’re missing out on a lot if you’re limiting yourself to only your ideas and experiences. It’s also important to practice kindness. We only have so much time in our lives and only cross paths with some people briefly (there’s so many of us). Do what you can to spread love and brighten someone’s day.

Pricing:

• Single song masters = $50
• Single song mix and masters = $150
• Do discounts for anytime someone gets multiple songs at a time

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carbonulcer/
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1oW1aZ2MPkI8YJYZqftFSK
• Other: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/carbon/1756206953