LA-based producer Real Bad Man and Detroit rapper Boldy James release their third collaborative album Conversational Pieces, out now via the producer’s Real Bad Man records. The album includes singles, “Come Back Around”, featuring DC polymath artist dreamcastmoe, “It Factor” featuring El-P. At this point, the duo’s creative chemistry is undeniable, and Conversational Pieces finds the duo exploring new territory sonically through an expanded production palette that Real Bad Man continues to innovate and experiment with. Recorded directly following their second joint album 2022’s Killing Nothing and revisiting it in 2023 after Boldy’s serious car accident, Conversational Pieces is a methodical record that chronicles both periods of time in Boldy and Real Bad Man’s respective lives as musicians, fathers and collaborators. The album’s cover artwork and corresponding artwork for singles are all inspired by Rorschach Inkblot tests, abstract images that force conversation in trying to describe them.
Speaking on his approach to the album with Real Bad Man, Boldy says, “The music is a reflection of just me growing as a person, me understanding the mechanics more of how the music works and me trying to be more personable with my experiences and trying to balance fatherhood within making this music. This music is a reflection of where we’re at in our brotherhood, where I’m at as a father and where I’m at from a career standpoint.
People think that you’re just this producer [Real Bad Man] that fell off the sky, or you’re just a producer.. that you just make beats. They don’t know that you orchestrate bands and quarterback, like whole musicians and shit like that. So you have a genius to your songs. You broke the barriers of the last two albums we made.”
The fluidity of styles Real Bad Man has alternated between so far this year emphasizes the approach he takes to working on joint projects with artists. He’s not simply a producer, he’s a creative partner, helping visualize and develop the artistry of each of his contemporaries that he works with, which often end up developing into long term partnerships like with Boldy, Blu and others. This year, he’s breaking down the conventions of him as a producer whose mastered one kind of sound and working with one kind of artist, instead exhibiting his versatility by exploring psychedelic new territory with ZelooperZ on Dear Psilocybin. There are more Real Bad Man records on the way, including his first strictly non-rap album, with more details to be revealed soon.
