Flippie van Vuuren is marching to the beat of his own drum … literally. Better known as Reese, this 17-year-old EDM producer and sound engineer is making waves, with his music soaring towards half a million YouTube views.
Music runs in Flippie van Vuuren’s veins. His late grandfather (also Flippie van Vuuren) was a boeremusiek legend and earned a spot in the Guinness World Records for playing a whopping 78 instruments (yip, you read that right. Seventy-eight!).
Even though his granddad passed away when he was young, Reese still feels deeply connected to him through music. ‘I always wonder how far I’d be if I had his guidance.
Even though he’s not here anymore, my goal is to honour him and make him proud.’
In fact, musical talent runs deep in the family. His dad was a DJ back in the day, and his cousin André has also been big in the music scene. So, it was only natural that Reese would eventually find his own groove.
‘I’ve always loved listening to music, but never really thought about making it. Until my cousin introduced me to the world of music production. And that’s when the obsession began.’
Fast forward a few years, and now you’ll find him glued to his laptop every afternoon after school, counting beats, layering sounds, and engineering tracks that are completely his own. EDM is his playground, and he experiments with deep house, house, drum and bass, and more. ‘EDM is such a broad genre with so many styles. I love mixing things up.’
But, as a self-taught sound engineer, it didn’t come easy. After getting his hands on professional software, he turned to YouTube tutorials, trial and error, and a whole lot of patience to master the craft.
Oh, and if that wasn’t enough, he also dabbles in guitar, piano, and drums. Which basically makes rhythm second nature to Flippie.
By the time he finishes school next year, he plans to help his cousin in his IT business while working towards his ultimate goal … doing music full-time. (And he’s already got some major milestones under his belt.
He’s created more than 5 000 songs, and his remix of Where Are You Now by Lost Frequencies has racked up around 450 000 views on YouTube. Meanwhile, his original track Running Out of Time has hit 13 000 streams on Spotify – and counting. And he’s got fans from all around the world … Australia, Denmark, Switzerland, Columbia, Miami – you name it, there’s a fan there.
While Reese draws inspiration from his grandad, when it comes to producers, he looks up to Calvin Harris, David Guetta, and local artist Sam Mkhize. ‘Sam’s music has inspired me a lot. He’s not a massive mainstream name, but he’s successful enough to do music full-time. And well, that’s the dream.’ In fact, Reese recently remixed one of Sam’s songs and sent it to him, only for Sam to love it so much, he played it at his live shows.
When he’s not producing, Reese is out DJing at events because, as he puts it, ‘If you want to make it in music, you’ve got to put yourself out there.’
One of the biggest misconceptions, he admits, is that people think he just plays music. ‘Being a producer means I physically make the instrumentals from scratch. It takes hours – even days – to get one song right. It’s not just pressing buttons. And most of the time, it just comes to me. I’ll be at school, and an idea for a song will just pop up out of nowhere. Then I will get home and put it together.’
With that said, it comes as no surprise that he barely sleeps. A typical night? Laptop on, music mode activated, a bit of homework (maybe), then back to music until the early hours.
The hardest part of his journey though, has to be marketing and really getting his music out there. ‘I know my music is good. If I could just reach more people, I know they’d love it.’
But no matter the challenges, music is his escape, his therapy, his everything. ‘Music has gotten me through happy times, sad times, even times when I felt angry at the world. There’s always music playing in this house. It’s too deep and personal to even put into words.’
For now, Reese is balancing school, music, and the occasional gaming session with his Jack Russell, Tekkies. But long term, he’s aiming for bigger audiences, bigger stages, and a future where music is his full-time reality.
His life motto is If I’m not going to do it, who is? And with that attitude, we’re pretty sure he’s going to go far.
Details: Follow @reese_music on Insta, YouTube and Spotify and @reese.music on Tiktok
