Strange Famous signee B. Dolan first gained notoriety as a wide-eyed 18-year-old in 2002 when he participated in HBO's Def Poetry event and won numerous slam titles. It was clear he could write, perform and deliver his work with conviction, but he wasn't prepared to deal with major labels. It's no surprise he turned to the mic once again to launch his burgeoning hip-hop career, which took off once he moved back to his hometown of Providence, Rhode Island after a stint in New York City. Sage Francis, longtime friend/founder of Strange Famous, took Dolan under his wing and released his second full-length, Fallen House, Sunken City, in 2010. Currently pushing Vol. 3 in the House of Bees mixtape series, Dolan is putting the finishing touches on his third full-length album, Kill The Wolf. While he couldn't reveal too much about the new record, it's slated for a 2015 release on Strange Famous. Visit www.strangefamousrecords.com for more information.
RAPstation (Kyle Eustice): Your back story is very interesting to me. I read that before the 9-11 attacks you were kind of wandering aimlessly around New York and when the attacks happened it left you paranoid so you moved back to Rhode Island. In a weird way, do you think you were put on this path with SFR because of the attacks?
B. Dolan: I wasn't really wandering aimlessly around New York City, I moved there purposefully to be a rapper at 18. I was working as a nightshift doorman on Park Avenue, commuting an hour both ways and trying to figure out how to get a career off the ground. I had some success at the Nuyorican [Poet's Cafe] and ended up taping some stuff for Def Jam. What little contact I had with the music industry at that time was enough to let me know it wasn't going to work for me. I was too radical in my thinking and what I wanted to say, and the kind of things I wanted to make. By the time the September 11th attacks happened, I was already sort of disillusioned with what I'd found in New York and had sort of come to the DIY way of doing things on my own. I felt like I couldn't navigate or understand relationships like 'producer' or 'manager.' I didn't want to rub elbows and try to figure out what people could do for me in order to make my shit. Then 9/11 happened, and definitely made me and the folks I was living with go a little nuts. In the months after it, people didn't know when the next thing was coming, and then the anthrax shit started happening. People were on edge and I had been very loosely tethered to the city to begin with. All of those things sort of aligned and led to me moving back to Providence and running into Sage. It was certainly a bit of serendipity that led to us coming together; but part of how I was changed by 9/11 involves the fact that I stopped giving any weight to ideas like 'fate' or the universe's plan or whatever. If the universe is being planned it's being planned by a sociopath, but y'know...thanks for killing 3,000 people so I could meet Sage, yo!
In many ways, I'm sure Strange Famous is family at this point. What's the best part about working with Sage and the rest of the crew?
Well, there's a lot of good parts. One of them is the respect I have for the people I'm collaborating with, which tends to bring out the best. Another is trust and the fact that I can count on Sage and them to let me know if something is not working like it needs to. Or bounce kinda half-formed ideas off them from time to time.
What got you into volunteering for at-risk youth programs? I am working with one here in Fort Collins called Team Fort Collins, which is a substance abuse prevention program.
That was another of those post 9/11 after-effects. I felt like it wasn't enough to write or rap about the things I believed; I needed to get involved and do some concrete work. I've spent a lot of my life trying to figure out what the place of art is, and how and why it matters in the world. During that time, I didn't think it mattered except as an outlet for the people creating it, so I tried to use my abilities with it to do something that mattered. We created a program where we'd perform in schools and then work with kids to provide them an outlet and some value of themselves.
What inspired you to start knowmore.org?
The disgust I felt after volunteering for the John Kerry campaign. I was fed up with the two party system electoral bullshit, and thinking about other ways people vote. Consumers vote with their dollars every day and we created Knowmore to try and empower people with that in mind.
I've kind of lost track of you since I last saw you at the Sage show in Denver during the Copper Gone tour. Tell me about the House of Bees. How did this mixtape series initially come to fruition?
Since then, I spent the last half of 2014 finishing up House of Bees and the official LP, and touring in Europe. I did a bunch of dates with Atmosphere and then headlined in the UK. Shit was wild. Lots of those shows sold out which was incredible. The House of Bees tapes came about in 2009 when Buddy Peace started remixing songs of mine from The Failure and then sending me beats to rap over that were dope and also super sample heavy. It's a great source of frustration for rappers and producers that sample clearance laws now stand in the way of making the kind of music we want to make. The likelihood of an album like Paul's Boutique or Buhloone Mindstate getting made nowadays are next to nil, because it's scary to put all that work in under the threat of being sued. Also, I love mixtapes. DJ Clue tapes and a bunch of others that we would trade in school were some of my most prized possessions back in the day, so I loved the idea of being able to create things like that. So we started releasing the songs that contained samples in a mixtape format as the House of Bees series. They're as good as an album, contain mostly new material that we wanted to make, but for one reason or another, it's not legally smart to release it through the commercial channels of iTunes and distributors.
You're getting ready to drop a new LP. Tell me about the project. Where do you prefer to write?
It's not time to talk about the new LP so I'm gonna hold off on that. There's a lot of surprises in store but we'll be rolling them out in a very purposeful way. For now, I'll just say to expect it in the first half of 2015. I prefer to write behind a locked door; ideally with some coffee, weed and the beat on repeat.
I see you are on your way to SXSW. Are you looking forward to the festival?
SXSW is always some shit. I don't know if 'looking forward' is the right term. I am bracing myself. It's cool to see a lot of friends that week, though it's often kind of physically exhausting and a festival setting is not always my favorite place to perform. I guess over the years I've become more aware of giant, looming pop-up venues sponsored by energy drinks and junk food, but I dunno. I am not enough of an O.G. to care if SXSW is keeping it real. I expect a whirlwind of industry and spectacle when I go there and am not disappointed.
Who are you currently listening to? Any new favorite artists you've been digging?
To be honest, I've been obsessively listening to my own music for months and avoiding all of my peers' projects on purpose. Not sure if he's considered new anymore but I obviously dig Kendrick, and we've been listening to how his last album is produced and mixed a lot. Those guys are putting out great, inspiring work. I also dig Chance the Rapper. Those were probably the last two rappers whose shit I dug enough to camp on it. But like I said, I've been in quarantine and have missed some things. I have noticed a lot of new rappers who sound exactly like another well established rapper though. That's a thing now. I have not digged that.
What does the music you make mean to you?
It's a compulsive need that has entirely shaped my life since I started doing it at 12-years-old. 'Teehee.'
B. Dolan: The RAPstation Interview
Strange Famous signee B. Dolan first gained notoriety as a wide-eyed 18-year-old in 2002 when he participated in HBO's Def Poetry event and won numerous slam titles. It was clear he could write, perform and deliver his work with conviction, but he wasn't prepared to deal with major labels. It's no surprise he turned to the mic once again to launch his burgeoning hip-hop career, which took off once he moved back to his hometown of Providence, Rhode Island after a stint in New York City. Sage Francis, longtime friend/founder of Strange Famous, took Dolan under his wing and released his second full-length, Fallen House, Sunken City, in 2010. Currently pushing Vol. 3 in the House of Bees mixtape series, Dolan is putting the finishing touches on his third full-length album, Kill The Wolf. While he couldn't reveal too much about the new record, it's slated for a 2015 release on Strange Famous. Visit www.strangefamousrecords.com for more information.
RAPstation (Kyle Eustice): Your back story is very interesting to me. I read that before the 9-11 attacks you were kind of wandering aimlessly around New York and when the attacks happened it left you paranoid so you moved back to Rhode Island. In a weird way, do you think you were put on this path with SFR because of the attacks?
B. Dolan: I wasn't really wandering aimlessly around New York City, I moved there purposefully to be a rapper at 18. I was working as a nightshift doorman on Park Avenue, commuting an hour both ways and trying to figure out how to get a career off the ground. I had some success at the Nuyorican [Poet's Cafe] and ended up taping some stuff for Def Jam. What little contact I had with the music industry at that time was enough to let me know it wasn't going to work for me. I was too radical in my thinking and what I wanted to say, and the kind of things I wanted to make. By the time the September 11th attacks happened, I was already sort of disillusioned with what I'd found in New York and had sort of come to the DIY way of doing things on my own. I felt like I couldn't navigate or understand relationships like 'producer' or 'manager.' I didn't want to rub elbows and try to figure out what people could do for me in order to make my shit. Then 9/11 happened, and definitely made me and the folks I was living with go a little nuts. In the months after it, people didn't know when the next thing was coming, and then the anthrax shit started happening. People were on edge and I had been very loosely tethered to the city to begin with. All of those things sort of aligned and led to me moving back to Providence and running into Sage. It was certainly a bit of serendipity that led to us coming together; but part of how I was changed by 9/11 involves the fact that I stopped giving any weight to ideas like 'fate' or the universe's plan or whatever. If the universe is being planned it's being planned by a sociopath, but y'know...thanks for killing 3,000 people so I could meet Sage, yo!
In many ways, I'm sure Strange Famous is family at this point. What's the best part about working with Sage and the rest of the crew?
Well, there's a lot of good parts. One of them is the respect I have for the people I'm collaborating with, which tends to bring out the best. Another is trust and the fact that I can count on Sage and them to let me know if something is not working like it needs to. Or bounce kinda half-formed ideas off them from time to time.
What got you into volunteering for at-risk youth programs? I am working with one here in Fort Collins called Team Fort Collins, which is a substance abuse prevention program.
That was another of those post 9/11 after-effects. I felt like it wasn't enough to write or rap about the things I believed; I needed to get involved and do some concrete work. I've spent a lot of my life trying to figure out what the place of art is, and how and why it matters in the world. During that time, I didn't think it mattered except as an outlet for the people creating it, so I tried to use my abilities with it to do something that mattered. We created a program where we'd perform in schools and then work with kids to provide them an outlet and some value of themselves.
What inspired you to start knowmore.org?
The disgust I felt after volunteering for the John Kerry campaign. I was fed up with the two party system electoral bullshit, and thinking about other ways people vote. Consumers vote with their dollars every day and we created Knowmore to try and empower people with that in mind.
I've kind of lost track of you since I last saw you at the Sage show in Denver during the Copper Gone tour. Tell me about the House of Bees. How did this mixtape series initially come to fruition?
Since then, I spent the last half of 2014 finishing up House of Bees and the official LP, and touring in Europe. I did a bunch of dates with Atmosphere and then headlined in the UK. Shit was wild. Lots of those shows sold out which was incredible. The House of Bees tapes came about in 2009 when Buddy Peace started remixing songs of mine from The Failure and then sending me beats to rap over that were dope and also super sample heavy. It's a great source of frustration for rappers and producers that sample clearance laws now stand in the way of making the kind of music we want to make. The likelihood of an album like Paul's Boutique or Buhloone Mindstate getting made nowadays are next to nil, because it's scary to put all that work in under the threat of being sued. Also, I love mixtapes. DJ Clue tapes and a bunch of others that we would trade in school were some of my most prized possessions back in the day, so I loved the idea of being able to create things like that. So we started releasing the songs that contained samples in a mixtape format as the House of Bees series. They're as good as an album, contain mostly new material that we wanted to make, but for one reason or another, it's not legally smart to release it through the commercial channels of iTunes and distributors.
You're getting ready to drop a new LP. Tell me about the project. Where do you prefer to write?
It's not time to talk about the new LP so I'm gonna hold off on that. There's a lot of surprises in store but we'll be rolling them out in a very purposeful way. For now, I'll just say to expect it in the first half of 2015. I prefer to write behind a locked door; ideally with some coffee, weed and the beat on repeat.
I see you are on your way to SXSW. Are you looking forward to the festival?
SXSW is always some shit. I don't know if 'looking forward' is the right term. I am bracing myself. It's cool to see a lot of friends that week, though it's often kind of physically exhausting and a festival setting is not always my favorite place to perform. I guess over the years I've become more aware of giant, looming pop-up venues sponsored by energy drinks and junk food, but I dunno. I am not enough of an O.G. to care if SXSW is keeping it real. I expect a whirlwind of industry and spectacle when I go there and am not disappointed.
Who are you currently listening to? Any new favorite artists you've been digging?
To be honest, I've been obsessively listening to my own music for months and avoiding all of my peers' projects on purpose. Not sure if he's considered new anymore but I obviously dig Kendrick, and we've been listening to how his last album is produced and mixed a lot. Those guys are putting out great, inspiring work. I also dig Chance the Rapper. Those were probably the last two rappers whose shit I dug enough to camp on it. But like I said, I've been in quarantine and have missed some things. I have noticed a lot of new rappers who sound exactly like another well established rapper though. That's a thing now. I have not digged that.
What does the music you make mean to you?
It's a compulsive need that has entirely shaped my life since I started doing it at 12-years-old. 'Teehee.'
