Billy Drease Williams
CHAMP MAGAZINE
The Boy Hollywood
CHAMP: What are you up to at the current moment?
Billy Drease Williams: At the current moment. I’m actually working a spot for my EP release party/performance and knocking some stuff down in the studio and trying to get my hands on everything. I’m working on the EP right now called Good Evening Billy. It has nine tracks. Kind of give people a preview leading to the album. The album will come out sometime this year; I’m not really giving a date on that just yet, but immediately this EP is on the forefront of what’s going on.
CHAMP: Now just to clarify, a lot of people may think you only do the production but do you actually spit as well?
Billy Drease Williams: For myself, I deal with 98% of the production. On this particular piece, there’s only one song that I didn’t produce. I’m always open to work with other cats and have them working on music on my projects, but I also do produce for other artists. Most recently I did two tracks for Stat Quo. He used to be signed on Shady/Aftermath and he’s probably the most notable but I produced for cats around the town. Whoever’s interested really.
CHAMP: Like you had mentioned earlier you were on Stat Quos Quo City project. You actually caught my attention on the Intermission joint, which is a very chill joint with some soul in it. How did you and Stat connect for that joint?
Billy Drease Williams: A good friend of mine used to do a lot of management and pr work for me out of New York City. Media Music was the name of the company and he’s good friends with Stat Quos manager. So it’s one of those connections, like I alwys send tracks to my man and if ever an artist or a project came about, he would just make sure he would push a couple of the tracks to see if anybody was interested. It was a natural fit because Stat Quos manager and Media Music have been working together for a long time. It was just perfect timing man. Stat Quo killed it. He’s always been on the look out and people been checking for him but unfortunately I don’t know what happened with his situation but he still got it and I like that cat a lot.
CHAMP. You also go by the name of Edreys. What’s the meaning behind that name?
Billy Drease Williams: Edreys is my birthname. It means “one who writes”. It’s Arabic. So leading up the Billy Drease Williams is from close friends and people that have known me for years. They kept calling me Drease and me creating this Billy Drease Williams moving forward, made sense for me to spell Drease phonetically. It’s easy for people to pronounce it when they see it.
CHAMP: You’re also dropping the Good Evening Billy project. Is this going to be a collaboration project where it’s just you behind the boards and others spitting on it or do you do some spitting yourself?
Billy Drease Williams: It’s all me. There’s no features on it. It’s all me on the rhymes, all me on the beats, besides one track from my man Documentalz. He’s from Buffalo and lives in Atlanta now. Real dope producer and on that particular song, these two girls called L & S who were back up singers for Jill Scott sing on that particular song. Another cat I got to work with was a guy by the name of Richie English. He did a couple of back up vocals on some of the tracks.
CHAMP: You also do artwork. How long have you been doing that for?
Billy Drease Williams: Longer than I’ve been rhyming. That was the first thing I picked up with the pad and pencil. The artistic background was just as prominent if not more prominent for what I do. I went to school for graphic design so its always been my fabric really and I can’t separate the two. I’m either doing the artwork or I’m doing music. You could see a lot of that in the Get Free video where I illustrated the video to go with the music.
CHAMP: How long have you been making music for?
Billy Drease Williams: Wow. That’s a tough one man. Really doing it professionally, traveling and landing on projects, about a good 10 years, but it’s really longer than that. The paying dues and that whole certain thing is certainly much longer than that.
CHAMP: Going back to the Good Evening Billy joint. What’s the message you’re trying to get across with this project that you’re working on?
Billy Drease Williams: It’s a brief introduction. We had The Classics joint, which is 20 songs on classic beats. That was a mixtape and I don’t really like making mixtapes, because I like making solid songs. With Good Evening Billy it’s taking an introduction of a different sound, different style, different presentation of a new artist. This is my first solo effort man because previously I had done work with other cats, but this time it’s a solo effort. The reason why it’s called Good Evening Billy is because it’s a pre-curser to Good Morning Amy, which is the album. To me it’s a little on the darker end of material. I talk about a lot of street consequences. I got a song called How Ironic, talking about anything from a mother who’s shoning her daughter from having pregnancy early but yet still her mother’s having an abortion to two boys who hang out with each other all the time and then they find out that they have the same father. I just want people to take a teaspoon of my talent.
CHAMP: From a producers aspect, what tools can we catch you using in the studio?
Billy Drease Williams: I keep it real simple. I use Reason. Give me an apple computer, Reason and a midi keyboard and I’m off and runnin’. I don’t have any ASR or MPC. Technology enables a lot of cats to get the sounds they want. It’s not what you use it’s just how you use it.
CHAMP:Are you a fan of sampling or not sampling?
Billy Drease Williams: I used to sample, I mean sampling is the core of hip hop. For the Stat Quo joint I sampled and for other cats I’ve sampled, but for me personally I’ve just been driven to kinda learn more about music and learn how to play and incorporate like my man Richie English. He’s a classically trained musician. If there’s anything I need to be played, he does that. I wanna do it much larger than just the level that I’ve been on. In order to that and get in to licensing and that sort of thing, it needs to be sampled free so I’ve been really driven to not sample personally, but I still love sampling.
CHAMP: What are your thoughts and views on E-Digging vs. Crate Digging?
Billy Drease Williams: Ha haaa. Technology allows a lot of cats to do things that they couldn’t do before. It changed a lot of shortcuts for a lot of people that wanna get into it, but I don’t think there’s nothing that can compare and can replace crate diggin’. If I’m sampling man I’m using an album. For one of my singles called “I Like It”, that was a sample from Betty Wright. That was an actual album I mean like that was a 45. There’s no other way. It’s quick and easy. If you E-Dig it’s totally different than putting that needle to the groove man. You can’t compare man but it’s unfortunate that people don’t get that experience but they gotta use what works for them.
CHAMP: We’re entering the second quarter of 09. What else can we expect from Billy Drease Williams?
Billy Drease Williams: After this EP drops, the thing I’ma focus on most man is being more prominent on the web, publicity, get a lot more publicity. Where I live here is a 300 mile radius but just focusing on this album. This album’s gonna be big for me. It would be big for the label, it would be big for Buffalo. I have big plans for it and I see it doing very well and making a splash and making a change.
INTERMISSION - STAT QUO (PRODUCED BY BILLY DREASE WILLIAMS)
BABY STEPS AGAIN - BILLY DREASE WILLIAMS
