Ah'Mari Made His Debut Album in a Public Library. Now He Wants the Amphitheater Across the Street.

Ah'Mari made his whole debut album in a public library. I'm not saying that to be cute, the second floor of the Melrose Center in downtown Orlando has a booth, a couple of stage mics and a Focusrite and that's where most of Revelations came to life. The crazy part is this is the first music he's ever made. Not his first album, his first anything.

I sat down with him for CXM to talk about how a 23 year old from Hollywood, Florida ended up making a full length album about a breakup before he ever dropped a single, why he's sick of his own suit and the song he can't wait for y'all to hear.

Broward, but not the sound you think

Ah'Mari was born in Hollywood, Florida, which confuses people every time he says it. ("There's a Hollywood in Florida?") He grew up in Broward, the same area that gave us XXXTentacion, Ski Mask and Kodak Black. That's not his lane though. He makes indie pop, bedroom pop and dark R&B and he knows that makes him different.

"I'm coming with something different with indie pop and R&B," he told me. If he blows up he wants to be the artist from Broward nobody saw coming.

Music as free therapy

I asked when music first made him feel understood and his answer was honest. He's not always the best at saying what he feels out loud, so songs did it for him. Then a relationship ended and making music became the outlet.

"It was just like low key free therapy, I'm not gonna lie," he said. "I'm putting these emotions into this music... people resonate with that. That's just the art and beauty of music."

He's not out here naming names either. He brought up Drake, The Weeknd, Frank Ocean, PartyNextDoor and Olivia Rodrigo as artists who turned heartbreak into albums, but he says he'd never get as specific as Drake does. "I don't want people witch hunting or hating on the person," he said. "What's done is done."

Why go straight to an album

Every music Twitter thread will tell you small artists shouldn't drop albums. Ah'Mari has seen those threads too. He even picked up Ari Herstand's How to Make It in the New Music Business from the library and studied it while he was recording. He went album anyway.

Part of it is he likes proving people wrong. The other part is he wrote it like a movie. Every song was a scene in his head, which is why Revelations is built to be a visual project with music videos on the way.

Built in a booth across from Lake Eola

His first attempt started in October with BandLab and a mic in his bedroom, just humming melodies and turning them into lyrics he'd save in his notes app. It was hard and he still didn't think he had the voice for it, so he took a break. Then in December he met Willie, who's now his videographer, and Willie put him on to the Melrose Center. That's where No Good For Me, the album's first track, came alive and where Embers got recorded too.

"Not the best microphones," he said, "but they do the job."

Embers

Embers is the song. He found the beat on YouTube (he's a proud free for profit beat merchant, "there is gems, I don't care what anybody says") and came up with the first line on a voice memo while he was in South Florida. The whole album runs on fire, the phoenix, purification and Embers is what's left after the fire goes out. He calls it the final dance with somebody before you let them go.

The day he wrote it he dropped everything, went downtown and recorded it. Then he broke down crying in the booth. "That song holds a special place in my heart," he said. "Just because something's over doesn't mean the moments weren't good."

It also wasn't supposed to come out first. He was secretive about it until his friends Pierre and KZ kept pressing him in Discord about why they hadn't heard anything yet. He caved and played it. They were expecting something goofy and got the realest song on the album and now it's the first song he's ever released. His Valorant username is literally Ember Man now.

The hardest one to write

The title track Revelations went through two different beats before it felt right. It's the turning point of the album, the moment he stops pointing at her and starts looking at himself. "Maybe I'm to blame" is basically the whole thesis. He found the final beat scrolling YouTube and the intro sounds like going back in time, which is exactly what the song does.

The suit, and what's next

The whole Revelations era came with a uniform, a sparkly black suit inspired by The Weeknd's red suit during After Hours. He wore it to every performance. He's done with it. "I'm so sick of that suit," he said, which might be the most relatable thing an artist has ever told me.

What's next is a song called No Chaser, the start of a new era about what comes after the phoenix. He played me a rough demo and yeah it's toxic, in the best way. A friend told him it had "devil tarot card energy" and he had to text somebody who actually reads tarot to find out that's not a compliment. He's hoping to drop it soon.

Five years from now

I asked where he sees himself and the first answer was arenas, Kia Center specifically. Then he scratched that. His real dream venue is the Lake Eola Amphitheater, which sits right across the street from the library where he made the album. He told me he was walking past it after a session and had a vision of performing those songs to a full crowd with fireworks going off over the lake.

I don't know many better full circle stories than that. Making an album for free on library mics and then performing it across the street. Ah'Mari is 23, this is his first project and he already knows exactly what he wants it to look like.

So go listen to Embers and tell me, who's the artist you were early on?