I MAKEMADBEATS, aka James Dukes, the founder and original producer at the UNAPOLOGETIC collective and label, recalls growing up with his father in Orange Mound, working on a barely functioning computer. “He had no idea what I was talking about,” the son remembers today, “but I got him to say something into the pencil-sized microphone. I just wanted to show him I could sample his voice. And he said, ‘Voulez-vous coucher avec moi,’ from that song. Then I made a beat out of it and he was like, ‘What?’ He couldn’t believe I could do that.”
Many still can’t believe the sounds that same knob-twiddler and composer is capable of today. And yet, aside from a 2011 album and a 2017 EP, most of the beats he’s known for are for other performers on the UNAPOLOGETIC roster. Lately, that’s changed. Starting last November, MAD, as he’s known, released MAD Songs, Vol. 1, the first of five releases that he’s personally sculpted to tell his story. Volume 2 is due out in early April, with three more after that slated for later in the year.
“When I’m done dropping all of one through five, it’ll just feel like one long album,” says the producer. “It’s really the story of me that I’ve never told, historically, because I’m usually busy producing other people. But there’s a lot that happens in the world of James, in the world of IMAKEMADBEATS, in the world of dad, and in the world of being a husband, that I’ve never explored musically. And that’s what these tell the story of. When it’s all said and done, MAD Songs Vol. 1-5 will really be MAD Songs, the album.”
If you know Vol. 1 already (one of the Flyer’s top 10 albums of last year), you’ll note that it has plenty of featured artists. Indeed, MAD himself is still behind the scenes, as his favorite singers and rappers step up to the mic. The difference? He’s crafting the narratives with them, in pursuit of his vision.
“There were times where I wrote a hook or suggested certain lyrics, but on a whole, it was more of an emotional bed that I created. Like ‘Depression And Redemption’ [on Vol. 1], was a group collaboration between me, Idaly, Idi, and Teco. I wasn’t really trying to control the words of the song so much as just tailoring a song that felt like what I went through. With ‘What I Need’ by PreauXX — well, PreauXX, that’s my brother. What he’s talking about are things we’re both going through. Basically, I would say, ‘Talk about this your way, as long as it fits under the umbrella of this general emotion that I need to be a part of this story.’”
Make no mistake, MAD needed to tell this story. It took on a new urgency around the time the pandemic started, but it wasn’t Covid: He had other crippling health issues. “I was going through some health things,” he says. “I had the feeling of being in a choke hold by my own illness and by the pandemic, and that was pushing me into a dark, dark tunnel about myself. ‘Born Again’ [from Vol. 1] is probably the song that set all of this off. My best friend, the best man at my wedding, the number one person I’ve ever made music with, a guy named MidaZ the Beast, had just been diagnosed with stage 3 lymphoma. For us to both be facing life-threatening illnesses at the same time didn’t feel like a coincidence.
“In the midst of all that, I found this song we made in 2014 called ‘Born Again,’ where MidaZ raps about diseases and plagues and how he can remove cancer by being born again. Not in the religious sense. It really is about being forced into something new, adapting, and that being okay. I took that as a sign: ‘You’ve got to put this song out.’”
MAD’s even recruited his father again, for a Vol. 2 track about parents teaching their kids about violence. “He came to my new studio Downtown to record it. It was beautiful, knowing that the very first recording he ever did for me was on that broken down computer, and now he’s in my studio.”
