Don Dubb
What’s your name? How can people find you?
iAmBillyDee Yeah, I go by the name iamBillyDee. And people can find me @yougottalovebillydee
Don Dubb So, you know I’ve been tapped and watching your grind for minute. I’ve always liked your creativity. You always had a different vibe. Like you really don’t follow trends too much but, when you did something that everybody else was doing you kind of put your own flavor on it and you made it yours. I view that as exceptional talent. What inspires your music? Why do you do music? How’d you get started?
iAmBillyDee I started very young. Being surrounded by the music in my family. Musicians in my family. Family friends who are musicians is just music all around me. I think I was just born into it and slowly it just began to manifest itself in my life. More and more I started off acting, so I’ve always been a part of entertainment but around the age of 8. I wrote my first rap, and so it’s been on since then. And then you know as time progressed. I got into my teen years music kind of took over from the acting, and took the forefront of my focus and my passion and energies led me to this day.
Don Dubb I also remember you were rapping, you’re doing something a little different now. Talk to me about the transition and whats the direction of our vision, for what you’re doing now?
iAmBillyDee Well, I think this time around, with this album I have a called Abundance is actually a rap album. My my initial plan was to go with an album called Hunger for Love which is like you said it’s more of a transition from rapping into R&B. The more soulful sounds more experimental type stuff, but you know with everything that took place in the year 2020 in this country we live in of America. A lot of things I couldn’t ignore, and didn’t feel like Hunger for Love would be the best message to bring for this time. So I decided, I wanted to go with a more classic approach to a rap album. I’m someone who’s highly influenced by L.L. Cool J. And so when I think of a real rap album I think of L.L. Cool J. I’m a West Coast guy and I love West Coast music but I’m just talking about when you look at a album as the epitome of a rap album you want to think about L.L. Cool J. So I took that into my mind and I put together a whole new project. After the corona pandemic came about and after the untimely death and killing of George Floyd and, Brianna Taylor and just the culmination of all of those police brutality deaths. Colliding with the uprisings and protests, that were taking place around the country. You know that drove me back into the studio to come up with something bigger and better and more fitting for this this period. So what I have is a blended scene on this album. Like I said, it is a rap album but, I’m speaking to this this very very specific moment a history that we live in.