Water From the Well

Virginia, long a fertile hotbed of undiscovered talent, has always been a great place for a long drive through the woods, a visit to the city, a couple nights on the beach, or a mountain expedition to revered Appalachia. A refuge of seekers, peacemakers, and active imaginations, the Atlantic touching wall to the south was making waves long before Pharrell Williams joined the party. It's no surprise then, that at the foot of mighty Appalachia, nestled into charming horse country, we find one of the year's most ambitious and exciting projects. It's only March, but it's already my album of the year.

The Flaurist and Boldy James have linked up for a fusion of worlds that can only be described through the story woven into the album's fabric. The more the narrative unfolds, the more urgent the message becomes. The tale is as classic as the hustle itself, but of course, this is Boldy James working the narration, an artist who is as breathless as he is laidback, who is as nonchalant as he is razor sharp.

Production from the Flaurist provides a unique landscape for Boldy to travel through, and both artists handle their ends with finesse. Drums and guitar from CO:LD deliver neck snapping pace for Boldy to wave his scarf around, and StMike sees the Flaurist and Lomaji crafting a frosty sample-laden playground that sees Mr James cracking through the track like he never leaves home without an ice pick. At many points in the record, you can hear Boldy's excitement to be in this new territory, his rhymes coming off like a secret magazine, tucked away under the drawers, awaiting that necessary moment. Simply put, I haven't heard Boldy rap like this in years.

A consummate independent artist, The Flaurist has been releasing exclusively to bandcamp for over a decade now, a small army of releases already under his belt, and production credits that riddle corners of the streaming universe. In any city, he is your favorite producer's favorite producer, in demand for hosting club nights and managing artist tours, most recently for Kassa Overall on their Animals stretch. I caught up with him in Virginia- The Flaurist, real name Emmanuel “everyone calls me EJ”-to see if I could understand how two elusive artists came together to make not only my favorite Boldy record, but a rap record I've been calling an instant classic.

So, this isn't your first record.

Nahh. I've been hustling cd's out of my car since I was 15, I always had a fresh cd-r, waiting for friends, family, or strangers, just to bless them with. Sometimes it would be a mix sometimes my new ep. It was, for years, a lot of electronic music, but as I shifted to working more directly with that space, djing and working in clubs, working with more and more electronic music-think like 2008-2020- I started coming back to the guitar a lot more, so instead of cd-r's I always had my guitar. My father taught me to play when I was a baby, so the music is in just there, in my blood. We'd be singing together at church, playing guitar and dancing at home-my whole family like every week, after church, like forty, fifty people in a room just vibing. I'm sorry what was the question? No not my first album, check em out on my bandcamp. I keep some work on there depending how I feel.

Hehe. Let's get into your latest project: The Exorcism. As a fan of Boldy's, this project struck a chord of curiosity with me -seemingly coming out of nowhere you know?-and from what I've been reading on the internet, it caught others off guard as well. Seeing Boldy branch out and grow lately from working with a consistent cast of characters has been exciting, but this album comes off almost like a return to his more exploratory, more hungry and dare I say-underground roots. It's refreshing. Can you speak to how this project came together between you two?

Honestly, it was twitter. I know a lot of people whose best ideas or the most ideas even, occur around 3 or 4 in the morning. Theta waves I think they call it for creativity.. Well in the middle of researching a few ideas super late one night, I saw a tweet from Boldy offering features- I want to be clear I am a fan first of Boldy and for that matter the whole Griselda clique- but anyway, I jumped in, hit him up and we FaceTimed. We were suddenly talking like brothers, and just tapped into this whole other realm that was just smooth and easy. I sent him some Chaldean love because my family, they all came to the states through Detroit way back.So the love was felt, we were talking some real shit and it was real quick, we didn't need to chat long.

At first, it was money for a verse, but then it was like fuck it lets do an EP. Shout out to his sister Double Dee.. her and I became fam thru this and we've been working out the chess moves for more independent sustainability. But yeah we connected, so from there I knew it was a vibe. At first I think I as expecting to work maybe a small joints to test the waters, but over the next few days things ramped up and suddenly I was getting verses at 4 in the morning, every morning. I remember feeling like, I wanted an EP, but we're making a classic. That was some real drive. He picked this one beat at first, this beat I flipped from my homie Lomaji- that he wanted that one first, that really struck me. I just thought it was interesting because my flip had been this kind of like, this process you know. Where Lo and I had this kind of spiritual connection, and in my mind I'm thinking oh, he felt that, let's deliver on that energy. So StMike, in many ways became the nucleus we wrapped this project around.

That track is vicious.

Yeah thank you. I just did my best to imagine Boldy to as the hero, I think so many people see him as this villain, and so a lot of his music comes soaked in darkness, I just felt like I saw the vision, I saw in his wordplay this like dream, this desire to get to the next level, this heavenly energy. So I just did what I could to create that pathway for him, I wanted him to have as much freedom for himself, for his team, to find the flow and the path they wanted. So between ideas of using the mic as an archangel's sword and eluding darkness in search of the light, that's where the title for the album came from, the two of us working to rid ourselves of old ways to pursue a new ground. In every time we talked I could feel this pull of a higher intention coming from the two of us. It's like we wanted to break out of the night, of the dark. I think something we connected on in a strong way, was that we both get caught between the hustle and the righteous, you know we both have children on the way so there was always this sense of urgency about trying to achieve a message for them you know, something that can be carried on through time but also a conventional rising that creates an unconventional route for them. I guess we found this bridge we'd like accidentally built that connected us and I can only hope other people can decipher and enjoy the path you know, enjoy the view. It's a lot, but that's what I hope this record can convey, and to anyone really. I felt, the entire time working on this record, that our audience was time, you know not like streaming listeners or whatever, necessarily.

The price on bandcamp definitely caught some attention. Why such a hefty price tag for the release?

I mean: punk shit. [laughter] But nah, I think we're-as a generation even- at a place where you know, the value of art is in, a crisis. And ultimately I think all music should be free, but I would also price this record at like a million USD if I could. I think every artist should feel empowered today that their work will be or should be in a museum one day right? And people pay to go to museums to be in front of that artwork, and like so the collectors right? They pay millions to own it and keep its real actual presence basically to themselves-sometimes. But almost all the shit you can imagine being in that space and in that world, is easily referenced and googled and printed and shared and spread anyway. And I don't think we can turn that off, but I do think we can make it work for us, for us all, as creatives, and as regular people. I guess my hope would be for people to tap into a space where they feel valued, where they can charge a million dollars for their midnight poem to a million different people. I read something recently that really stuck with me: 'The value of art is in the risk people take to be in front of it'- I think they were referring to a painter but that idea really stuck with me. And you know I'm not hoping to coup a check off this release, it isn't about greed or my own hustle really, I want people to think about and consider the value they place on art like this. As I'm watching saturation occur everywhere in music, in art, in culture, I'm not trying to get my piece of that market, my hope is that this stands in opposition to that idea, I never want my sound to be just another crab fighting to the top of the barrel. And I hope other artists and musicians follow this idea of being able to name your own price for your works. A lot of people complain about the state of the music industry today, and the value of being independent, but not a lot of people are doing anything to change those root structures. Even if it's only a small stream of water from the well for now, what I'm trying to build, what I'm looking forward to, is that river one day. So to speak haha sorry, I hope I didn't fly too far there..

No thank you, I thought that was perfect. I know there’s people out there anticipating the physical release, any plans for a vinyl or physical release? And what's next for the The Flaurist?

Yes. The team has plans to get a vinyl copy out there, but like the bandcamp, it wont be cheap, there will also be some cd's for sale, both should have some bonus tracks involved. We're going to avoid some of the more traditional methods to get this thing distributed but please visit www.checkoutthewebsite.com and we'll keep you informed. As far as the Flaurist goes, just keep checking forflauers.