Who Is Boldy James?

Detroit rapper Boldy James first made waves—at least, in certain underground circles—with his debut tape, Trapper's Alley: Pros and Cons back in 2011. The then-29-year-old rapper had crafted a 28-track epic, an autobiographical opus that focused on the unflinching truths of the drug dealer's day-to-day. It was a lifetime in the making; some of the verses had been written when Boldy was only a teenager.

Far from glorifying, it found artfulness in documenting humanity in an ugly occupation. His street-oriented style and autobiographical stories were reminscient of New York rappers like Prodigy and Cormega. Many of his friends and classmates had ended up in jail or dead; in some ways, his work felt like a memorial for the many people lost along the way by a sole survivor.

Since his debut, Boldy has gained momentum, ultimately recording his latest record—this month's My 1st Chemistry Set—entirely with underground superproducer The Alchemist. The record has earned considerable attention, and while it might not make him a superstar, it leaves him poised to make an important mark on the genre.

But who is Boldy James? We spoke with the rapper about coming up in Detroit, the influence of his cousin, Cool Kid Chuck Inglish, and his plans for the future.

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Boldy James: "I was born in Atlanta, but I been in Detroit since like one year old. Both of my peoples are from Detroit, born and raised, all my grandparents, everybody is. My pops had to go get work down Atlanta because he had got laid off his job in Detroit. He's a retired police officer. They had me when I was down there, but he had got shot, so we came back home when I was one year old. And I been here ever since.

"If you know anything about Detroit, it is what it is. I'm gonna tell you this man: I never had everything I wanted, but I'll always have more than enough. You're always like a block away from the bullshit, or next door, or across the street from some bullshit. You can be in your own little world, your people can have you secured, but at the end of the day, you gotta stand up on your own two. Going to school, or the friends you play with on the block, everybody's situation isn't always the same.

"In my situation, my grandfather was a gangsta, all my uncles were some gangsters, my man was a crooked cop and my OG, she always been a hustler. So my world as a kid, I had the sneakers, the clothes and the video games and shit. But I didn't treasure that shit like everybody else because I always knew money ain't your money necessarily. I knew I was going to grow up and see it myself one day, so I just see it from every angle.

"Any angle somebody could get some money, or do some dirt, I just see it from every angle. So I grew real half-ass, trying to outsmart a cop. You know all the shit I did growing up, I had to think the shit through 1,000 times. Because if I got caught, not only is it embarrassing to my father and his job, my people because I'm in some bullshit at school but to myself to.

"I was always the type a kid that my people looked at as a 'good guy', so I always tried to keep that 'good guy' image as long as I could. So when all the bullshit started hitting the surface, I was already old enough for them to understand that they can take their hands of me and don't really gotta look over me and shit. Or as much as the next kid because I was street smart."

Boldy James: "I never really went to school. Where we used to go to school, I would get easily distracted and I was like a genius kind of kid. I never had to do work, or try real hard to get good grades. So I used to get bored fast, so if it didn't really carry my attention, I didn't really give a fuck about it. I wasn't going to school.

"We were funny, we were always trying to get money; gambling, messing with girls, anything other than school. School was the last thing on our minds as kids. I think the last time I've actually been to school on a consistent basis, in steady rotation, school like getting my book and my lunches...Probably seventh grade. We've been skipping school since elementary.

"We were some advanced kids man, we were different. Every other kid they're just not... They go to high school to lose their virginity and they did get introduced to shit like drugs until college. Well not in my neighborhood.

"I used to stay on the eastside of Detroit as a baby growing up, through my wonder years. But when it was time to start getting money and pussy and shit, I was on the west side. Them two different worlds to anybody that knows anything about Detroit. But I had the best of both worlds as some say. Like I said, most people don't get introduced to drugs until college and me, that shit always been around.

"My grandmom was a junkie, my grandpops sold drugs, a lot of my uncles was hustlers and my cousins and shit. So I always been familiar with that lifestyle, you know what I'm saying. There wasn't nothing for me to spread my wings and think I was onto something, or new something that didn't nobody else know and try to do the same bullshit.

"You know in school you know you had to have certain things, you know. You had to be fresh, or people had jokes, or would talk about you or some shit. And me, I wasn't playing that shit. I would fuck around and have a problem with someone trying to speak down on me because that ain't what I come from. I don't come from none of that backing down, or none of that. Or even getting into no altercation, or putting myself in a situation for nobody to have nothing to say to me anyway. I guess what I'm trying to say is school was the last thing on my mind bruh because the money was more important.

"We city boys. This ain't the country so, people looking, judging, and writing things differently up here. They not letting nothing slide, you can't get away with no country boy shit around here. People are going to crack jokes and go on you about not having things. There's things you can't come into school without because at 13 you're considered as accountable for your own sins, so in my world you're a man already. About eighth grade if your parents can't do it for you, or they not doing it for you, you had to get it on your own. So that alone threw me off balance and off track of going to school, because the money was more important. I knew I wasn't going to need school for what I was going to do in life."

Boldy James: "I was in the streets in 3rd, 4th grade.

"R.I.P. Boldy James, the real Boldy James, my man James Osely, who I got my name from. A lot of people know the story, and you could probably read about it. Big homie stayed across the street from me. My name is James the third, his name is James the third but they used to call him Boldy James. He didn't rap, he just sold drugs. And I rapped and 'Bold and Cold' is the motto of the neighborhood that I'm from. So the 'Bold' automatically made sense to me, and I was familiar with the jazz artist Boney James, that my father used to listen to when I was growing up.

"So it just had a nice ring to it: Boldy James. So I took it and ran with it, before my man got murdered. When I was little, he used to give me cocaine packages to babysit. And I used to penny pinch out the packs and substitute it with different things that were similar to the same color to what the pack was. I was pinching grams out of it and selling grams on the side to get me Nauticas and like Air Jordans and stuff. So I been familiar with the culture because it was a lot of junkies in my neighborhood.

"It was nothing for me to mix and mingle with the old heads, stand on the block and let them know this is what I'm trying to do. The dudes that I know, they weren't the type of dude that were for the greater good. It was all about the money. So it ain't nothing to corrupt a little young'n and try to get him in the flow things, so you could mold him to want you want him to be, so you can make some money of the boy. Or make some money with him.

"And I was always somebody, that knew somebody, that was more important than the people I was dealing with. So I never had the same prices, or I never had the same altercations and problems that everybody else goes through, when it was time to get the package or get the money.

"I'm still getting the music done. In the meantime, in-between time, I can honestly say I sleep better at night now. I can say that, life ain't as shaky as it used to be. Because I done had a couple scares, a couple near-death experiences, all that. I'm just blessed to be here, to even be doing the music for y'all to hear it, for me to leave something behind just in case something was to happen to Boldy James.

"I be out here thugging, man. It is what it is, some of us get lucky and slip through the cracks and some us, we don't make it. Them my tales, I'm here to tell y'all about the good guys who was going through the same struggle that everybody else lose to, who didn't make it. But they be living through me, I tell the world about some of my favorite people that I can't even share none of this success, or this money with.

"I wish I could really speak on some of the things I know, I can only scratch the surface with this shit. Then I can only sugarcoat, beat around the bush with the music to a certain extent. I can't really get in depth like I be wanting to with this shit because I ain't trying to get in trouble, or get nobody else in trouble."

Boldy James: "I always loved the music. All that gangsta shit from my era, the Ice Cube's, the N.W.A.'s, the DJ Quik's, MC Eiht's, the Biggie's, Tupac's, the Wu-Tang's, all that. That was my thing back in the day, Nas. Growing up the music is what kept me grounded. I used to have a lot of hardships too, losing a lot of peers.

"Me and my friends, people used to hate on us and didn't understand us really, so they tried to go about it the wrong way in getting to understand is. If that makes any sense. The music has always played a big part because nowadays, the music and the television is what raises children. It's not the parents, it's the streets, the music, the big screen.

"I'm just blessed to say we weren't those TV box kids, my pops didn't let me watch a lot of TV. So I never really played a lot of video games or none of that, I was always in the street, active. Playing basketball, tackle football in the street, like real little boy stuff. So when it came time for us to jump off the porch, we was already familiar with the people in the neighborhood and the blocks. The older dudes in the neighborhood that was going about doing things differently to get money.

"I started to rap, I guess, in like second, third grade fourth grade, when they used to give us our spelling words on the chalkboard. How I would used to learn the meaning to them, is to write them in a rap and put them in a sentence. And I used to try to cram, jam them in all into a paragraph type of flow, so I could learn the way there spelled and the definition of them. And that's how I used to ace my tests.

"I've always been musical. My grandmom, she sang in the choir, my grandfather, he was a jazz musician, one of my uncles, he use to do his thing on the R&B tip.

"First time I ever went to the studio was with my cousin, A1, down in Mississippi, but we didn't actually record nothing. The first time I ever went to the studio and recorded, my man Freddy Rueger took me to the studio and we put something together. I wrote a song for me and him, we went in the studio to write it. So my first time had to been of been like 15, 16 [years old] maybe. Ever since then, I've been kind of recording quite frequently. I been getting it in since then because I knew I had to hone in my craft and my skills. So, I just been sharpening that up a little bit to get ready for the big leagues, so I can compete with the big boys and the big dogs."

Boldy James: "I was born into this shit man. Detroit, that's what the city is built upon, it's built on crime and drug money. That's what my city is run off of. Ain't no jobs around here, that's what my city is crunching off of, it's the bagging and the streets man.

"It's still money circulating, it's just in the underworld. It was money circulating in the auto industry. Back in the day it was nothing for somebody to be getting money the right way. But now it's limited because the city done bottomed out. So a whole lot of those businesses are closed, and a lot of people had to file bankruptcy and losing their homes and they jobs, just due to everything in general.

"Like I said the work world and all that isn't going on around here. So we still gotta eat and we still gotta put food on our tables for these families and get these bills paid. So people go about doing it their way.

"I feel like Detroit is the exact opposite of how it was in New Orleans. Katrina came through and wiped New Orleans out, and it was quick, it happened fast. It seems like Detroit had a slow disease type of death, like cancer. Like you know you're dying and you just don't know how deep and how quick the hole is chewing through you and when you going to be finished. But you know you going to be done soon because that's what cancer do to people.

"That's what it feels like around here. I love it though man because it's all I know but in the same breath, I don't like the people that make up the city, if that makes any sense. It's a lot of people around here I'm not too fond of, you know what I'm saying.

"When I'm in a situation I can leave. Now, I can't because a lot of my people need me around here. I got a big family you know what I'm saying, so I gotta stick around and make sure everything is copasetic and up and running with the fam. If not for them, if I was to up and leave, I feel like a lot of stuff would fall apart."

Boldy James: "What's crazy is if I was to leave Detroit, it would be under the circumstances of me having some real money that I can bring and make sure the fam is tucked away, and they secured. Because, Detroit is really what's been holding me back from putting the music out quicker. A lot of the stuff ya'll heard is old music. I kept it safe enough, and didn't leak a lot of it to be able to present it to y'all and it still had that new feel to it.

"In reality I've just been more focused on doing the music. It could possibly pass my life because I love doing it and I was going to do it whether I got paid for it or not. But now, I've been listening to Chuck Inglish and all the game he done gave me, him telling me it actually could work. I've just been trying a little harder. The response I've been getting got me wanting to just keep doing it, that's all because I do other things for money. This music is definitely better than what I be having to do for money.

"Chuck, that's my little cousin man. Chuck always been the same dude he is now, real cool, quiet, for the most part only talk when he's spoken to, or you saying some stupid shit for him to correct. Chuck a real nigga man. He the type a guy where if he feel like he gotta have this, he's not going to do that. And that's what you have to respect about him the most because he keeps everything, open and honest and on the floor. So Chuck never been a dude to try and get over or pull the wool over nobody, or razzle-dazzle nobody. So, that's why he always been one of my favorite guys.

"Me and him feed off each other, we learn a lot from each other because we not in the same word neither. The most Chuck now about this lifestyle he learned it from me, and him growing up as my little cousin made him one of the roughest, toughest, dun-dadas, that I ever bumped into. Because he did it from nothing to, and he shocked a lot of people who didn't expect for him to do it on the level that he took it to. So, big ups to Chuck for believing in me and always knowing I had what it took to get to this point and beyond.

"See I inspire Chuck on different levels. When Chuck needs somebody to talk to about real life, or he needs some musical inspiration, or he needs to know something that he doesn't understand about the streets, or he got some real problems in the streets, that's where I come in.

"When it comes to learning about this business and me needing somebody to talk to about life and somebody I can trust to know these things that I go through, that's where he comes into play. He always felt like my confidant, my advisor. He's my little cousin, he's family, that's what he is to me. He been my family the whole time I known him, he never turned his back on me, speak down on me, none of that. He just always showed his cousin love and I'm just trying to return the favor, get on my feet like I'm supposed to be so I can be his big cousin."

Boldy James: "Man Chuck just told me, 'Ay, you remember that one rap you spit to me back in the day?' I said, 'What.' He said, 'You know the one about you being locked up with the 100 thousand dollar bond and you shooting a nigga for the 100 bucks.' I'm like, 'Yea.' He like, 'Spit that to this beat.' I'm like, 'Man, this beat cool but it don't sound like me.' He like, 'Man trust me do it, it'll work.' So I'm like, 'Aight.' Then spit it up, he's like, 'You got another verse for it?' I'm like, 'Yea.' He's like, 'You got a hook?'

"I thought for a minute freestyled the hook up, we slapped the hook on there. I look up he got the song mixed, in action, trying to push it to the max and telling me it's my next big hit. I'm like, 'Hold up. Hold up man, slow down Chuck.' Chuck know's what he's doing so I don't ever really question what Chuck tells me to do, I just give him a hard time because I'm his big cousin.

"It looks raw because it was so spontaneous. None of my videos really be having treatments. I had one where there was a little acting and it had a little lightweight treatment to it. For the most part I just be freestyling everything, as a result of that you know, 'Jimbo'.

"Trapper's Alley was frustrating because I gave out a date, it felt like I couldn't put the project out in time. So it was kind of like a rush job, so that's why that was stressful. Consignment [Favor for a Favor: The Ready-Rock Mixtape], I had a little bit more time and I worked with more people on that project. Trapper's Alley was definitely one of my funnest projects to put together for sure because it was the experience of me trying to cram-jam all that music into one disk. People telling me it wouldn't fit, that's too many songs and it's not gonna work, people not going to listen to it because it's too much music and I'm like, 'Shut the fuck up I know what I'm doing. Just let me do me.'

"You gotta do either one of two things, you either going to do the music, or be in the street. You can't really do both, they always seem to clash. I started getting into the music, then it was like I had to get back to the streets and get this money started getting funny. Then, once I get to the money for so long it's like damn I'm getting away from the music. It's the balance in it, and you got to have good balance. I always been kind of able to balance-beam that out on the scale, they kind of both work in my favor. So, I maintained in the streets long enough to be able to pull the music off."

Boldy James: "Alchemist is good friends with Chuck Inglish, Cool Kid. Chuck played him some of my work and Al was like, 'Where is this kid. I want to work with this kid.' Chuck just put two and two together and me and Al got a project coming out, probably beginning of winter time or the end of summer.

"Grand Quarters was my people's down in Deacon, it was their idea, they were like we should put an EP out before the Alchemist project. Just to get people familiar with everything that's going on, so we could get everybody prepped and ready for this Alchemist project. It was just a build-up for the album for me and Alch.

"He done been out here in Detroit, I go out to LA all the time. Al is working with Eminem right now so, that's big on my part that he's working with me at all. So big ups to Alan the chemist, my dude out in LA.

"That Grand Quarters stuff is old, too. Only song that's new on there is 'Come Here' and 'I Can Pull it Off', all the rest of it is old."

"I don’t consider myself as 'old' because the music I was making I was actually making when I was 22, 21 years old. It take longer to get a grasp on something that’s so far advanced and so far ahead. And I had to like catch up with the times, I was too far, too juristic back then. I was talking about all of this shit when I was like 15, 16 years old, same old Boldy James."

Boldy James: "Had a couple trips to L.A. to get the album done. It took three flights to get the album done. It feels good just to know the steps it took for me to make it. And what I overcame to get it done. I've been having to go through a couple of legal hurdles and couple of family issues and shit but overall, but mostly everything is cool is still good court and a lot of shows you know what I'm saying just trying to build up momentum, keep it going, keep my name strong out here. That's all bro. I been on the same shit, smoking a ton of weed. I recorded 19 songs for the album, I think we only used 13 for the record.

"We did all those in his studio in L.A. I mean we did one joint in Detroit in my man's studio it was recorded in Detroit and L.A. and Al was there every step of the way he didn't email me nothing we cut all that shit and worked on all that shit together.

"It's not that is easier to record in L.A. It's just I be out of my normal element, I get to look from the outside in when I ain't at the crib. I could see shit that I can't see. When I'm at the crib cause, I'm swamped with this shit. It be a load off me its kind of like a vacation. Forreal, all that rap shit, that shit is paid vacation.

"Me and AL still got like three songs laying around, I always got new material the situation just got to present itself, but it just has to be the right situation. And then I scramble everything and re-record and put the touch on it and this that and the third. I do what I gotta do to make it work, but most of that shit already solid in the bank. When its time to pull the tricks out the bag is still new to the world cause they ain't heard that shit."

"I've been more focused on [rapping about what's going on] 'currently' lately. Of course, I got the flashbacks. I could paint a picture of the past. That's easy, but everything been more 'current' or 'right now,' or future-based. I ain't been on the shit I used to be on. I kinda got that off my chest and out the way so now I could move on a little bit. That's why I say that shit be like therapy."

Boldy James: "I got this Game Time Mafia project I've been working on. I've been on the chill with me and my people for a minute, but I'm a start putting some more touch up paint on that and see what I could turn that into cause I like what it was turning into before I've started having to focus on all the other shit. When the business came down of having to do business, I finally got that out the way and the album is finally done and about to be out that headache is about to be over with. Just focusing on some different shit, try not to keep hitting ya with the same shit.

"Me, my man Peachy Green, he on the Alchemist joint my Sister Mafia Duble D she on the Alchemist joint. Kevo the kid he on thirty in the morning the jamming mixtape, that's pretty much it and then a couple exclusive features through the neighborhood and city and shit and who we fuck with probably big names that can take us to a different level and give a different sphere on a fan base, other than that is just us is only us.

Lately, I've been listening to Trap House 3, Gucci Mane, pretty much a whole lot of unreleased Boldy James. Other than that I ain't really been on shit.

"But really, my angle be like those real melodic samples. You know—the soul, the music that you can feel, more so than what you can dance to. That's really my lane That's really what I be aiming towards. But I got to give them a little bit of everything. I hit em with the 'Jimbo's' and then the 'Come Here's' and then try to do the 'I Can Pull it Off's' and the 'One of One's' and the 'Gettin' Flicked,' the 'For the Birds.' I try to switch it up so people can see I got versatility. But I can just go straight for the kill every song to and people will get tired of that shit to.

"So you really can't win with motherfuckers, so your best bet is just to make the best music possible that you're cool with at the end of the day. Because you're the one the one that got to live with it."