Last Friday, the California-born singer Dudley Perkins, also known rapper Declaime, spoke with HipHopDX about his latest project Holy Smokes, which will be released on July 28 on SomeOthaShip/E1 Entertainment. Dudley began by explaining his departure from former label Stones Throw, indicating that his new deal has given him the chance to promote artists who preach the ever-important message of peace and love.
“I had tons of music and artists that I worked with over the years,” noted Perkins. “I wanted to build up and make my artists get heard a little bit more and their messages be heard a little bit better through a bigger route…I tend to stick to my family, because what I’ve got to say in my music is different than what a lot of other cats out in this world [have] got to say, and what I believe and know on this planet is way different than [what] a lot of people know and believe…I do my music [with] a spiritual base without religion. It’s from the ancients or something because there are messages all through and throughout, and the people that come around me, they’ve got a message to say…our music is for the people, so if it’s for the people, we can collab and do whatever.”
Unlike many of his musical contemporaries, Dudley Perkins has often experimented with both singing and rapping. He describes the differences between both, explaining how each style allows him to express different emotions and ideas.
“When I’m emceeing, I can go there [with] straight-up words and use my words as bullets,” said Perkins. “This how we stop the war, [with] words and sounds. We get words resonating in these peoples’ hearts [and] sustain a resonance that reverberates through their whole entire being. [Emceeing] wakes up the people that are driving in shifts. When I’m singing, it’s more like those are my prayers and how I’m feeling and my cries. I don’t sing, really, so I’m just harmonizing over some fat beats. A lot of it’s freestyling, so really it’s just like spontaneous movement and vibration.”
Dudley also explained his process of creating a song. He explains that a song’s musical composition compels him to reveal the truth of the world, and that his past work has allowed him to further explore the far limits of music on Holy Smokes.
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“The beat that [a song] beats is the heartbeat, so when you have heartbeats, you sort of kind of [have to] be the vein to that heartbeat, the blood pumping through the heartbeat,” he explained. “When you think of the highest things in truth, these things will come out of nowhere, and then it will constantly grow and grow. The music I put out on ‘Holy Smokes’ will grow into peoples’ hearts right now because I’m known to be hated on because I tried to sing on a few albums. I was just innovating, and I think that my innovation allowed a lot of artists to reach into their more creative side…and pull out extra things like the taboo of a rapper singing and stuff. That’s why I did a whole album with no rapping…I innovate because I create. I’m the creator. I’m always willing to do something first.”
Perkins further discussed his latest LP Holy Smokes. He says that the album is a personal reaction towards to the state of the world and the evils pervading throughout mankind. He also notes that album serves as a reflection of society.
“[Holy Smokes]’ unedited, uncut, raw,” said the Oxnard-born emcee. “It’s produced by Georgia Anne Muldrow and it’s also sample free. It’s an accumulation [over] the last couple of years of my mind state and what I’ve been going through and trying to actually obtain my mind state… away from the one that’s been diluted and poisoned by this planet and the suckers on it. I made [the album] extra long so people…[have] got a good movie to watch. It’s got little exercises in it. I take a little bit of philosophy and theology from here and there that I’ve used in my life and put that towards that.”
He added, “This album was more like saying goodbye to the Dudley Perkins personality. That’s why I started the album off [by saying] ‘To declaim,’ because when people look at what declaim means, it means to recite speech in [dramatic] fashion…during times like this, even though people think that it’s all good…I speak out right now…I put up a mirror on all people who don’t do what’s right.”
Dudley also talked about how his latest album deals heavily with the issue of war. He describes the emotional pain he endured while meditating upon the plight of people trapped in war-torn countries. But never the one to stay silent, Dudley hopes the powerful message in his music will open others’ minds to impact that war has upon innocent people.
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“Straight up, [there were] a lot of tears,” said Perkins. “There was a lot of actually trying to feel what them people and babies over there [in Africa] when they get bombed on over there and stuff by that European mindset called war…three month old babies can’t get out of the way of a bomb while their fathers’ are asleep. They can’t do that. Their father could probably wake up if he heard it and get out of the way, but how could the baby? I’ve got to go through the common sense of the whole fact of what they’re doing over there and what they’re doing anywhere with that [where] it involves children…that we’ve brought here and we’re trying to smash with our knowledge and our religion.”
He later added, “War [is] not a good occupation. Murder, that’s not a great occupation…sorry to bust your bubble, but killing is killing, and especially when your killing for somebody else’s cause…I know [soldiers] do not personally hate these people that [they] are killing. There is no way. You cannot hate somebody if you do not know them…I express that [on the album] a lot because there are wars going on and we’ve never had a time of peace. We over here in modern-day Babylon chill out and just act like there’s a time of peace because we’re the ones funding it with our work and through our Wal-Mart purchases…every single word that I use in my music is for that cause to stop all wars…we’re about to bring the walls of Babylon down through sound.”
