“What else?”: 8 mini-interviews with Boldy James

Boldy James: That was one of my most challenging projects because I couldn’t write nothing, because my arms were bandaged and I was in a wheelchair. So I had to freestyle a lot of that music and my voice was weak from breaking my neck. That was difficult because it was my first time ever feeling real physical pain. I just wanted to clear my head of the traumatic experience that I was trying to just get through so that I can one day look back on that like, you made that music against some crazy adversity.

It just build character, you know? I’m one of them type of guys where a lot of things I do is so in my future, I can reflect back on it and don’t gotta be ashamed of it, you know? I always just wanna look at that older version of myself and be like, that was me. Just keep it true to self. And if you build it, there’ll come. As long as you stay true to heart with it, you know, ain’t no telling what type of miracles you can make happen out of your situation.

It’s some of the best music that I made in the last 15 years. That project was easy peasy breezy. I try to make sure my last project don’t sound nothing like the one I’m cooking up at the moment. I try to have different versions of the artist that I am. I try to break it up in pieces and don’t try to give somebody that same flow or cadence. My content might be similar because it’s only a few things I’m really interested in. You’re going to get what you get out of me: a lot of hustle talk, shit like that.

[On this album] I was a more understanding father, and more understanding of where I’m going and where I come from. My son’s getting big, and at that age, you can see a lot of you in them. So he was a part of the project. My sister was on the project, as usual. I try to keep it as tight-knit as I can keep it, but still on the quadruple OG side, I still know what’s going on out here in the streets at this moment in time.

The FADER: The title of this one implies some kind of education. What lessons were you trying to convey?

Just be more descriptive on how you gotta play when everything is supposed to be on the low. When everything on the low, it’s a certain etiquette and a certain way you still can go about it without walking yourself into the precinct and handcuffing yourself and incriminating yourself in rap music. It’s cool to be the one that got away and can kick it without anybody else getting in trouble when we all can enjoy listening to this shit. That’s some of the coolest shit in the world.

It’s like, criminal code, you know what I’m saying? For all the creatures, for all the real underworld, it’s a dictionary for us. It’s a Britannica for niggas that be out here in the streets, pounding the pavement. The ones who, you know, built their foundation brick by brick, cause Rome wasn’t built in the day, you know what I’m saying? So everybody that’s out here putting that groundwork in, that was just for them, another slick way of me just getting my shit off.

That’s the second project with Gains after Indiana Jones, the project I put out while I was in the hospital. Rich is my brother, I met him in Chicago through the guys, Sir Michael Rocks and Chuck Inglish. Rich always been there for me, through some dark times or when I was one of them YNs down there about to crash out. He always tried to record music with me cause he thought I was great at that [even] before I knew I was great at it. Similar to my sister Mafia Double D, they always like believed in whatever the fuck I be doing musically, even when it didn’t make no sense to nobody else.

I got so much music, man. I’ve been locked out of this one email for about three, four years. Me and my sister been trying to break back in it. If I can get back in, I might’ve solved world hunger.

What do you think you’ve got in there?

I got some of the unmixed songs from the J.Dilla project. I got all type of old school records. If I can get some of them verses back and just revamp them and spit them on the type of time I be on, that shit might be crazy. I was really on something special back then.

This project and Murder During Drug Traffic made me curious on what your overall view on contemporary popular rap is.

It’s gon’ sound crazy to you bro, but the only thing I listen to and I don’t know why this is, but like 80% of the rappers I listen to are old school Tupac records. I listen to Biggie just to like get that old feel. When Big was running shit, his flow was crazy. My son, he love King Von’s music, so I got up on that. I used to listen to a lot of Drakeo the Ruler before he passed away. Slo-Be from EBK, Lil Scoom, Lil Jeff from Chicago. I was listening to the music before they passed but when they passed, I can hear the music different. They can’t speak up for their self no more, so it’s like you really get to hear like where they mind was at before life took a wrong turn or through a curveball at him. So I’m processing and dissecting the music a little different than others. Plus, you know, a nigga older and I’m really a musician so I pay attention to everybody who unique.

Chuck Strangers is an MC’s dream producer because he’s gonna make you compete with how good the music is. It’s like you actually fighting the beat, like damn, I don’t want the beat to beat me up. So you gotta take precautionary measures and protect yourself out there man, because it get tricky on the dance floor when the beat is the only reason these rappers are surviving. I’m about to come up with this glossary for my lyrics because I don’t think people really be hearing what I’m saying, especially when I be speaking slang. I’m just gonna break a lot of shit down and show how good I really am at this shit because I don’t think a lot of rappers can really outrap me. They might make songs that’s more catchy to the fanbase that they got but I don’t think like a lot of niggas can really outrap me, minus the beat or even plus the beat, you know what i’m saying? I I feel like niggas got a problem, Houston.

I feel like getting on these contemporary Detroit beats unlocked something for you.

I’m spongy as fuck. I know how to adapt to what’s going on. It’s still gotta be in my realm of what I do. I can’t break it down too crazy because the fans are gonna start questioning me for slightly attempting to color outside the lines too much. So I still keep it uniform enough for them to understand.

You have been delivering a lot of stuff that sounds different, though.

You can’t be scared to try new things when it come to being artsy. Every portrait you paint is not going to be the same even if you’re painting the same portrait. It’s always going to be differences. And I be flattered by people not gravitating towards the music as much as I would like them to but still taking that gang time mafia 227 concrete sauce and running with it. I still can appreciate that when I hear it in the other motherfuckers’ music. I be feeling like a proud great uncle.

Connecting your discography to painting is an interesting idea.

It’s all Picasso. He wasn’t stuck on the same style, you always had different things you appreciated him for, and that’s what the music is with me. I want people to know, brodie can rap on anything.

We back to regularly scheduled programming, feel me. That one taste palate everybody be sitting there hounding me about, like they feel like I’m breaking the oath with some of the music I’m making, I’m telling them, we back locked in with this drop. I got a different audience because I talk big boy shit. I got two dope projects back to back with different flavors on them. A couple of the records off of Hommage, you might hear them in the club. But some of this other shit, you might not never hear none of that shit in the club, but you will hear it in the cars with the big motors. We ain’t talking about the Impalas, we talking about like the Rolls and them Bentleys and the Raris and the Lam trucks. When you make big boy music, it ain’t a lot of niggas on that type of time.