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Hyper-prolific rapper Boldy James: ‘I never settled for the cards life dealt me. I’ve always been the dealer’
He’s already put out seven albums this year alone – a work ethic inherited, he says, from selling drugs in Detroit. But will we ever hear his tracks with the late great J Dilla?
His combative verses, as cutting and direct as Don Corleone whispering instructions to a made man, have earned him critical adoration and elicited high-profile co-signs from hip-hop figureheads including Earl Sweatshirt, Nas, Westside Gunn, the late Mac Miller and producer the Alchemist, while fans are intrigued to know how he remains so prolific. Boldy describes his days selling narcotics on cold street corners with vivid cinematic flair: on the spooky new trap song Aspen, he jokes that his “Mexican plug” – slang for a prestigious international drugs source – looks a lot like the late civil rights activist Cesar Chavez. Boldy has previously said that the late Detroit beatmaker’s estate had given him access to some of the last beats the producer ever crafted – putting him among the small group of MCs (Busta Rhymes, Ghostface Killah, MF Doom, Phat Kat) to get posthumous approval from his camp.
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