Billie James is Not Your Lover
Posted by Justin Boland on Sep 20, 2010 | 0 Comments
I highly recommend digging through the Billie James Project site, because each track has detailed footnotes and background reading. The attention to detail on this album is nothing short of amazing. I reached out to Dudu Stinks, the mind behind this project, for a little more perspective…
JB: How long did this project take to complete? What was the hardest part of the process?
Dudu Stinks: I took a class at the UW called Baldwin and Holiday taught by the inspirational Craig Werner of the UW Afro-Am department. In class, we read 9 Baldwin books, a Billie Holiday biography and listened to lots of Billie Holiday. The discussions we had in class made me fall in love with Baldwin’s work and Holiday’s music. At the end of the semester Craig asked us to produce a project that integrated Baldwin and Holiday in some way (paining, written paper, movie etc). I had the idea to meld the two by using Holiday’s music and themes from Baldwin’s writing. This birthed the Billie James Project. The project took 2 weeks to write and 2 years to release. At the time we were cooking other projects which made this one hard to get to. The hardest part of the process was getting a professional recording of the product.
JB: Considering how conceptual this project is, were you surprised by the incredible response it’s been getting?
Dudu Stinks: I am pleasantly surprised at the response we are getting. The album was aimed at people who have a good knowledge of James Baldwin’s writing and Billie Holiday’s music. This is a small set of individuals, so the love we are getting from everyone is welcome and incredible! I hope one day to use this project as a teaching tool. We are in conversation with some UW affiliates in hopes to do just that….
JB: What is the next project you’ve got on deck?
Dudu Stinks: STINK TANK II is the next one on deck. We have the tracks we want to use, but just need time to make them sound like butter.
Photo Credit: Joey Baltimore