[upbeat music] - James Dukes grew up in Orange Mound, as IMAKEMADBEATS, he made a name for himself in the New York hip hop scene.

He returned to Memphis and founded Unapologetic, which he calls a storytelling label.

Today he produces the most interesting music in Memphis.

I'm Chris McCoy, and this is A Conversation with IMAKEMADBEATS.

So MAD, - Yeah.

- Some people are not gonna recognize you, now that you're showing your face.

Because when you first started out here in Memphis, you wore a mask all the time, didn't you?

- Yep.

Nobody knew what I looked like.

Yeah.

Nobody knew.

- So, this is the new mask.

- So this is the new mask.

I've had many iterations of masks.

I have about 27 of them total.

And yeah, when I first, when I first got started, before I was IMAKEMADBEATS, I was just Nemo.

Nemo was like a childhood nickname.

And when I went to New York, I came back as IMAKEMADBEATS.

It's interesting how I even got my name.

It was my name on AIM.

- Oh, wow.

- Yeah.

- AOL Instant messenger.

- IMAKEMADBEATS.

That was it.

It was nothing more than my AIM name.

And I remember talking to a few people, and like people would introduce me as like, "Yeah, this is IMAKEMADBEATS."

And I was just like, "Nah, my name is Nemo, actually, but that's cool."

He's just calling me my AIM name, you know.

But then one day jokingly, while I was making a beat, I was laughing at somebody calling me IMAKEMADBEATS, and I was just like, "You know, that name gets the job done."

[laughter] It explains exactly what I do.

And it is a name I've never seen before, all one word, all caps, you know.

And then I just looked at it, I wrote it on a sheet of paper, and I was like, "I like this."

And it's a sentence.

My name is a sentence, right?

At the time, this was before Makonnen, and all, now it's like a thing, but before then, it was like, no, I had never seen somebody's name in, at least in hip-hop, their name was a sentence.

And so I was extremely excited about that.

And, and so yeah, my name became IMAKEMADBEATS.

I didn't have a mask yet.

I didn't have any of that.

I was just IMAKEMADBEATS.

And I have a, I was, again, I was at Quad, I was engineering a session, and Busta Rhymes was there on the session, and Busta Rhymes he was kind of drunk and he was not sober.

And he was saying some cool things, and one of the things that he said was that, you gotta figure out, "To make it in this industry "you gotta figure out who you are, what you are.

And then you gotta break the knob, turning that up."

And I left that session that night, and I went, the next day I was in sociology class.

And that's the interesting part about it.

A lot of my stories, I'm still a full-time student.

The next day I was in sociology class and whenever I'm trying to figure something out, I draw it.

Like when I wanted to figure this place out, I drew it, you know?

And so I was trying to figure out like, man, who and what am I?

And so I just decided to draw me.

And what I drew was this mask.

I drew a man whose face was all black, and he had the words IMAKEMADBEATS written all over his face over and over and over again.

Because at the time, I was just significantly much more focused on you knowing what I did and how dedicated I was to what I do than anything else you would use to judge me by.

Because there is something special about telling the world who you are before the world gets to throw you in a box in something.

I hated that.

I hated people's assumptions about who and what I was.

And so removing all of these little things that you would use to judge somebody and just putting a mask.

You had to wonder, you had to take the time, you had to scroll, you had to read the things I actually said to actually know who I was.

Good.

That's how it should be.

And that was the origins of the mask.

- Well, tell the folks though, let's start off, you're from Memphis originally, right?

From Orange Mound.

- Yep.

- Tell us about growing up in Orange Mound.

- Man, it was great.

It was particularly interesting, not just because I grew up in Orange Mound, but because I went to school at White Station.

And so you have that dichotomy of completely different worlds.

You wake up, you're walking down the street to catch the bus, and you're in this predominantly black neighborhood, and then you catch the bus and you get somewhere, and now you're not.

And so, [laughs] just that dynamic and the kinds of culture changes in between that is what made it incredibly impactful about how the neighborhood I grew up in, things that were unique to its culture there.

- When did you first get into music?

- I don't remember not being into music.

Probably before I began to talk and read and think.

But if I had to have a more serious answer, it was when my dad, I think it was the first time I saw my dad dance.

My dad has, I mean, nothing, at least back then, nothing would put a smile on his face like music.

Now, my son, his grandchildren will.

But back then I just remember watching him enjoy music.

Everybody loves when your parents are smiling and happy and enjoying themselves.

And as a kid, like the biggest smile I saw on my dad's face was when he was listening to music.

And so he had, for me, it looked like an amazing record collection.

And when he wasn't around, I would just explore through his records.

And he got us a Fisher-Price My First Turntable thing.

We were ruining his records by scratching them.

So he got us, he went to some garage sale and came back with a whole bunch of 45s and said, "Here you go."

And we started scratching those and it's been off to the races ever since.

- And I think you mentioned earlier something that I did not know, which was that you had started recording in your bedroom in high school, right?

- Oh, yeah, absolutely.

I would actually, now I'm so far outta school, I'll just say this, I would actually skip seventh period.

- They can't do anything to you now.

- Okay.

That's what's up.

I didn't know.

I would actually skip seventh period because I had a session.

[laughter] Or to go to CBU and fake being a college student and meet new people there.

So I would, yeah, I would go to our townhouse and I had this one guy named Black Owl, he was paying me $15 an hour to record on my S158 beta through my computer.

And that was my first recording sessions.

- Wow.

[laughs] And then, so you went to New York?

- Yeah.

- Right.

When was that?

- Man, that was my first two years in college were at UCF in Florida, and then I chilled for a year, and then I went to New York.

I finished my last two years in college in New York.

And that's kind of where everything got started.

- And you met a lot of people up there, right?

- I met everyone.

[laughs] I think I met you there.

No, I met- - No, no, you didn't meet me until you came back.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

No, I mean, I met all the people who would truly sprout a real professional career in production and engineering, for sure.

Just being at Quad Studios and just working and grinding and not being certain of what's around the corner, but somehow meeting all the right people and being in all the right places at the right time.

It was beautiful.

- Well, that's good luck.

- Yeah, it is.

- What was it?

Luck is preparation and opportunity?

- No, the way I look at it is, I mean, there's absolutely that, but the way I looked at it is, like, I was talking to a class yesterday at Rhodes, and I was telling them how like in New York or in spaces like New York people, I found that the environment cared.

They did care about your current value, but what they cared more was about your trajectory, right?

It's like investing in stocks, right?

If you have a penny stock or a cheap stock or a cheap share, what investors are more concerned about is what it's gonna be next year.

Right?

And I found that being in New York, there's a lot of things I didn't know.

I never had a formal education in music.

I've never learned anything technical in any sort of education, in a school.

But when you work extremely hard all the time and you have a unique obsession, people think like, "This guy's not going out.

"Like he's not gonna get punched in the face and walk off the stage," and opportunities come your way.

- So then you worked up there for a while.

Came back to Memphis and founded Unapologetic, I believe in 2015.

- Yep.

- Right?

So, I mean, what were you thinking?

You were in New York, which has a huge music scene, center of the hip-hop universe.

Right?

And then come back here.

And what did Memphis look like to you at that point?

- Metaphorically and literally, there were a lot of potholes.

[laughter] - Well, that hadn't changed.

- Yeah, no, there are a lot of things that I, you're in New York, and so you're seeing things before they happen.

I'm actually in the studio, I'm actually in these offices, so I'm seeing things before they happen, and I'm seeing where the industry's going.

I'm seeing how musicians are taking things into their own hands and creating real independent careers.

And then I came back here and I remember I sat in on this meeting of like how to help local musicians.

And people were like, "Let's get musicians to sit outside on Beale Street and sell CDs."

And I was just like, "Okay."

[laughs] Things have changed.

A lot.

And we should be preparing, at least for now, but definitely for the future.

But this is not even now, this is 15 years ago, and for the digital age of things.

And that's kind of where I began to find purpose in being here, which is just realizing that I've essentially taken a masterclass on like being an independent artist and I should probably share the wealth and try to build something here.

- So you started attracting talent to your home?

- Yeah, I did.

- Right?

- I did, man.

I was just doing me.

I think the brilliant thing about how I was set up was that like, I still had so much of my revenue coming from music licensing and things I had done in New York, clients I had in New York.

I didn't really feel the need to conform or play by any rules here.

That's really the foundation of why I would create something called Unapologetic.

It was that my whole life being here, I just wanted to be myself, you know?

And at first I thought I needed to go and find my tribe.

Right?

And you're looking for something already constructed, you don't find it.

And at some point, I just get so frustrated that I just start being me extremely loud, and then your tribe finds you.

Right?

And that was how all of this happened.

I literally was just out here.

I didn't need to appeal to anything here.

So I was just doing me extremely.

And before I knew it, people started knocking on my door and being like, "Hey, can I come learn from you?"

Or, "Hey, I wanna show you what I'm working on," et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

It all started with one kid.

He was a junior at University of Memphis.

He saw me at a production showcase where I was like playing beats and doing crazy stuff on my MPC, which here nobody had ever seen before.

And at the end of the show, he was like, "Hey, my name is Keenan.

"I would love to, can I come by and talk?

Can I come to your house and talk to you?"

I said, yeah.

He came by the very next day in the morning, and it's like, he's never left since then.

That was almost eight years ago.

[laughter] And now he's the president of Unapologetic, you know?

And so many people have come along in the same way, you know?

And that it kind of formed our mission statement, which is "to be boldly and unapologetically ourselves in ways that inspire others to do the same."

- And so Keenan, but is now his name is-- - Kid Maestro.

- Kid Maestro.

Right.

And then you have A Weirdo From Memphis, AWFM, who is an amazing rapper, CmaJor who has come up as a another great producer coming outta there.

- Absolutely.

- So many folks too.

Who else, who are we missing?

Who else do you wanna talk about?

- Man, obviously, we have, I mean, the very first artist I've ever collabed when I came back here was PreauXX.

PreauXX is a titan, a beast on a microphone.

He's done some amazing things and will continue.

The first artist we officially signed to Unapologetic is Cameron Bethany, who has done amazing things and toured the planet doing those things.

We have Aaron James, right?

An indie folk artist who, he just did Folk Alliance.

He's about to put out some new music, but he's always changing the game on what's possible in that world.

We have some new artists we're working with now.

We have Nubia Yasin, who was originally a poet, but is now transitioning into full-time musician.

We have somebody I'm very excited about, somebody who started off with us as a 15 or 16-year-old intern.

It's funny, his very first day of interning with us was the cover of the Memphis Flyer.

- Oh yeah.

[chuckles] - That's it.

In fact, his very first day, he was coming by, he had just gotten to my house to start his internship, and we were taking the picture in front of my house for the cover of the flyer.

And we said, "Hey, man, come on and join us."

He was 16 years old, and now he's 22, and now he's about to launch his career.

And so, we have a lot of new people joining us in a variety of spaces as well.

So really excited about what we got heading into.

- So, yeah, like I said, here we are in Outerspace.

How long has this place been around?

- So we got the keys to the building June of '22.

But we didn't grand open until November.

So right now, technically since grand opening, we're approaching a year and a half of being grand opened.

And it's been a fun, all of this started in my home.

So to have a studio that's not my home is, I mean, I have not dealt with something like that since I left New York where my studio was at Quad, or that's where I would be an engineer.

And so it's been great, man.

It's been a good experience.

- Here's a question.

And this is something I think is on the minds of a lot of musicians right now.

It seems like we're in a really strange time in the music industry.

And I feel like a lot of people don't know.

And this is probably something that's not obvious from people who don't follow the industry, or don't, aren't involved in it, who are just like, "Oh, wow, Taylor Swift is doing really well," Beyonce's got a new thing.

- Sure.

- But really, it's an industry in crisis almost right now.

- Absolutely.

- I mean, what are your thoughts on the state of the music industry right now?

- I mean, I'm just gonna go ahead and quote, or at least attempt to summarize what James Blake has been recently saying, which is just that "I think the world has been convinced that music is free," and therefore the way it's valuing music is as if it has no value or that you're entitled to it and you should expect great music no matter what.

And I think that that has ripple effects.

And then that's made it all extremely hard for musicians and creatives alike, across the world.

I think the current state of the industry, first of all, the industry is more independent than it's ever been.

And I feel like with the advent of social media, a lot of things swung into independent artists' lane.

Like, I mean, for the better.

Our ability to directly market and advertise to the people most interested in us, and those people being able to see what we want them to see was at an all time high.

The major labels lost a grip on their ability to gatekeep marketing and being in front of thousands of people.

And you had born a new independent market.

Right?

And that's great in any business, right?

More competition means everybody's gotta try a little bit harder.

Everybody's gotta be a little more innovative.

And that's where, we went through that, I wanna say maybe 2010, '11, '12, that era.

But I feel like now where we are is, the major labels have gotten, have figured out, how to control the algorithm on Spotify, how to get, how to control what's happening in these spaces and still make their content the number one content, what they want to push, the number one agenda that gets seen on these platforms that we all think are equal market platforms and they're not.

Right?

And so now the crisis is again, how do you market?

Right?

I mean, it used to be, when I first started, it was simple, man, go on tour.

If you can get on the road, you can start a career.

And honestly, not even go on the road and be amazing.

It was just, if you can get on the road and go from city to city to city, just like, getting past that threshold immediately meant like there was something that was gonna work in your favor.

How long it would last, we don't know.

But now with inflation and the way things have changed, it's just everything is so much harder for how much artists are not making.

Right?

And it's squeezing out the independent artists, it's squeezing out the innovative artists, the daring artists.

And so I find that, like, if you're not willing to build a world, right?

I don't know what to tell you anymore.

You kind of have to build.

Some artists have begun to figure this out where they're finding ways to create a space where people who are interested in them can soak them up and soak up their world.

And that's an algorithm-less approach, right?

That means that they aren't victim to the way the industry's currently set up.

Now, it's incredibly hard to get people off of these other platforms.

You advertise on Instagram, you advertise on Facebook, you advertise on TikTok.

Hey, come over here.

That's your new thing.

It's not even getting people to buy your album anymore.

It's just getting people to leave these Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and to go to your world.

But if you can get them into your world, you got a fan.

You know?

And I feel like that's kind of where independent artists are right now.

Is whether or not they're willing to build a world.

- I think that's a really good point that the platforms in times past or in the last few years, the platforms have been your friend.

Because when I say platforms, I mean social media, Spotify, even Apple Music and YouTube, right?

They've been your friends because they want your music to fill up their content space.

- Yep.

- But now it's switched where now that they've got you and they've got you dependent on-- - There you go.

- These channels that they want, it's much harder to get anything out.

And we've seen it across the industry, and it's not just music either.

- Yeah, no, absolutely.

It's the creative industry in general.

- Yeah.

It's the creative industry in general.

And especially with Spotify sucking up so much money, from the, well anyway, that's a whole 'nother conversation.

We could go on and on about that.

Going back a little bit, talking about growing up in Orange Mound and stuff, one thing you said to me a long time ago was that how you felt you and everyone else there when you were a kid, they all felt ignored.

- Yeah.

- You know?

- Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

- And I see that, with our new mayor, with Paul Young has been making a point of going in and talking.

Holding meetings and talking to people.

- Yeah.

- And I know you were a Young supporter.

- I am.

- In the election, but I mean, how does that, we're obviously still in a place where a lot of people in this city feel ignored.

- Yeah.

- Right.

But do you feel like, I mean, what are your thoughts on that now?

- Um... Progress is slow.

I have seen progress, but I think it was Malcolm who made the metaphor of like, pulling a knife outta your back, right?

The knife is no longer as deep in your back, but it's still in your back, and you want us to call that progress.

I am a big Paul Young supporter.

I don't even know if I can say this, but I'll say it anyway, we're on the transition team helping out with the arts and culture division of what he's trying to focus on.

I think I am proud of how much more notoriety neighborhoods like Orange Mound get now.

When I was a kid, the reasons Orange Mound is great and significant were never mentioned, and now the things that help somebody have pride in where they're from are beginning to surface more in media and just in general conversations.

I'll never forget in the '90s as a kid going my first visit to Harlem and watching people from Harlem be so proud to be from Harlem.

And what that was and what that meant for them, what that meant for like, their pride individually going off into their own paths, knowing that they're from a place that has created such greatness and had such pride.

And I've always wanted that, not just for my neighborhood of Orange Mound, but for the entire city of Memphis.

And I think now, we're beginning to see that pride locally and nationally surface.

But I do think we have a long way to go.

And I think right now some of the efforts that Paul Young is initiating will help a lot.

Yeah.

- Wow.

Yeah.

Thanks for that.

[chuckles] - Yeah.

- I hit you.

That was an unexpected question, I know.

- It's all good.

[laughter] What do you see in the future?

You guys, you have some new stuff coming out?

- We do.

We have a lot of new stuff coming out.

I'll go ahead and say this, this will be the first time I'm mentioning this.

- We're breaking news, breaking news here.

- Yeah.

So we're starting in a new event, a new regular event.

I can't announce the location yet, but it's gonna be for us, it's a game changer event that'll happen about six times a year, bimonthly.

It'll be the very first producer performance event in this city I've ever seen.

Heavily inspired by Daddy Kev and the "Low End Theory" movement that happened in southern LA.

I've been a performing producer for a long time now, and like I told you, when I first did it here, people looked at me like I was crazy.

And that's something that a lot of producers here do, want to do, and they don't want to have to go to a coast to find an audience for that.

But there's already an audience here.

And so we're gonna start that event.

It'll be called, as a way to celebrate what they did with "Low End Theory", which is the second album from A Tribe Called Quest.

We're gonna call this event "The Midnight Marauder", and that's Tribe Called Quest's third album as a way to say, salute to what you did, we're gonna carry the torch.

And we're gonna continue it here in Memphis.

So we're starting that.

There's a lot of music that's coming out this year.

And I'll say this, for the first time in maybe almost five years, I'm gonna have my very first solo performance this year.

As y'all know, I've been dealing with health issues so that kept me from the stage for a while.

But this year it's time to get back on the stage.

And one last thing that I'm hugely excited about regarding world building is that we have further developed the Unapologetic World app, right?

So this is an app that I developed myself.

Little known fact, I actually went to school for computer science.

And so there's an app available for iOS and Android devices.

It's called Unapologetic World.

This is our world.

This is the world that we're using to be algorithm-less to pull people into those who are interested in us.

But even further, the Unapologetic world, which is not necessarily us as a label, it's about people being unapologetically themselves and discovering those people and allowing them to tell their story.

And we currently already have thousands of downloads, whole bunch of subscribers.

- MAD, thank you so much.

This has been amazing as always.

And best of luck to you.

Thank you for joining us today.

Thank you for joining us today.

And this has been A Conversation with IMAKEMADBEATS.

[electronic hip-hop music] [acoustic guitar chords]