Andre didn't set out to become the loudest guy at his own car meet. Somewhere between a speaker that wouldn't quit and a mic nobody wanted to put down, that's just what happened.
Every Saturday, a stretch of gravel outside Atlanta fills with hoods propped open, tailgates down, and whatever Andre's got running that morning. Forty or fifty cars, one guy in charge of what the whole thing sounds like.
We sat down with him to talk about the Bumpboxx Flare8 Pro, and what it's come to mean for his crew.
Tell us a bit about yourself first
Hi, I'm Andre. Been into cars since I was a kid. My dad used to bring me to his meets, back before I really understood what any of it meant, and I'd end up asleep in the back seat on the ride home half the time. But I knew I wanted to be part of it.
By the time I was old enough to work on something myself, I was already hooked, so putting in hours at the shop with him just came naturally. These days I run with a crew of my own, about five years now, and most Saturdays I'm still the first one there. Guess some habits carry over.
What's a typical meet like for you?
We start around seven, before it gets hot. Guys roll in with coffee, somebody's already got a hood up on whatever they're working on, and it builds from there. By nine it's forty or fifty cars, people walking the rows checking out builds they've seen a dozen times because there's always something new to notice. A few guys who used to just watch now bring their own stuff to work on right there in the lot. It runs until the heat pushes everyone home, usually early afternoon.
How'd you end up being the one running sound?
Just kind of fell to me. I've been running sound three years now, since before most of these guys were even coming out, so it stuck. I've watched the whole thing double in size, and the sound's had to keep up with it. One time it cut out for a few seconds and I had six guys yelling my name before I even looked down.
What's your history with speakers at meets?
When I first took over sound duty, I didn't have anything special, just whatever was already built into the car. That got old fast, so I picked up a JBL Boombox 4. It did the job. Loud enough for most Saturdays, easy enough to carry, nothing about it ever really broke.
Were you looking to change anything?
Not really. Well, not intentionally at least. I ran that thing for close to two years without giving it much thought. It worked, and when something works, you don't really question it, right? You just keep bringing it. A couple of guys in the crew still run one today, and there's nothing wrong with that choice. It never dropped a beat on me, rain or shine, and I trusted it enough to stop bringing a backup. Figured I'd be running that same speaker for years. Then something changed that.
So what made you switch?
A buddy from another meet showed up with one, a Flare8 Pro, and it changed the whole energy of the morning. It's running 400 watts, and you could feel it the second it kicked on. People were hyped in a way I hadn't really seen over a Bluetooth party speaker before, more excitement around it than around half the cars parked there. That's what stuck with me, not the speaker itself so much as what it did to everybody standing near it.
Didn't buy one that day, obviously, but I kept thinking about that energy for weeks after. Turned out there was a version where you could put your own design on the front too, which was a nice bonus once I started looking into it. Ordered the iD version not long after.
What about the design stood out to you?
It's the shape, mostly. Everybody who grew up around a boombox recognizes it instantly, that rectangular block with the big drivers up front, and the Bumpboxx Flare8 Pro brings that back at full size, over two and a half feet long and 16 inches tall, instead of some shrunk-down throwback version. The LED display running across the front catches light at night in a way that nothing else at our meets does.
It's loud to look at, on purpose. Parked next to a car with the hood up, it looks like it belongs there, like part of the build rather than something somebody hauled out for the day. And knowing I could also put my own design on the grill made it feel like it'd be mine.
What does your grill say?
That's the iD advantage. Mine says "Low & Loud" across the front, which is just something our crew already said about ourselves before any of this, how we set our cars up, and how we run our sound. Seeing that printed on something we actually own, instead of just typed into a group chat bio, made it feel less like buying a speaker and more like getting a piece of gear that was already ours.
What's happening around it once it's set up?
Once the Flare8 Pro is out of the truck, it doesn't turn off until we're packing up. Somebody's always grabbing a mic, hyping up a car pulling in or clowning on somebody's paint job (in a friendly way). Malik brings his guitar sometimes and plugs straight into it, playing over whatever's running, and it turns into a jam session for a few minutes.
It comes with two mics, so there's always one free when the freestyling starts. Nothing serious, just messing around, but it pulls a crowd every time. People stop walking the rows to watch. It happens two or three times a meet now, whoever feels like grabbing the mic.
None of that happened with the old setup. You can't freestyle over a Boombox, or plug a guitar into one. Now the speaker's part of what people show up for, same as the cars.
Any one Saturday stick out more than the rest?
There's one that still gets brought up. A kid in our crew had been quietly building a car for almost a year, then rolled in with it finished. Malik grabbed one of the Flare8 Pro's mics without thinking and started announcing it like a real reveal, cars circling around, people cheering.
Somebody started chanting the car's name like a fight intro, and for a couple minutes that Saturday felt like more than just another meet. Grabbing that mic is what turned it into a moment people still talk about, and the kid brings it up every time we're out there.
Has "Low & Loud" on the grill changed how the crew talks about itself?
Low & Loud was already ours before the Flare8 Pro. It started as something somebody said in the group chat, half joke, and it stuck the way stuff like that does. Having it printed across the grill changed how visible the phrase is. Before, it was something you had to already be in the group chat to know. Now it's something you can point at.
Guys who weren't even around when it started say it now like they always knew it. New guy shows up, sees it on the speaker, asks what it means, and by the end of the morning he's saying it back to somebody else without thinking about it. I didn't expect a speaker to do that.
Has it changed anything beyond the crew itself?
It shows up in photos more than I thought it would too. People post pictures from the meet and half the time the speaker's somewhere in frame, grill facing out, so that's become part of how our crew gets represented online without anybody planning it that way.
If you'd told me a couple of years ago that a speaker would end up being part of how people identify our crew, I'd have thought that was a stretch.
What would you tell someone still deciding?
Buy the Bumpboxx Flare8 Pro for what it does once people are standing around it. That's the part a spec sheet won't tell you. Grab the mic. See what happens to a Saturday morning when the speaker's doing more than playing music at everybody.
But the numbers help too. I paid $549 for the iD version, and the two wireless mics were already in the box, no extra shopping trip. I've run it off the battery from seven in the morning until we pack up and never had to plug it in mid-meet.
If you run a meet, or you're the guy who always ends up bringing the sound like I am, a speaker with microphone included is the thing worth paying for. Everything else is extra.