bill e. shakes presents "the shakedown"

bill e shakes

he's from the A, man, doin' everthang.  young stunner, coming with that A game.  quoting bill e. shakes,  duke city represent.  bill has a new release in collaboration with boy dirrt called "the shakedown i & ii."

"the shakedown" contains 44 songs and is shakes' 24th release--yeah, count em, 24.  a hard working man, bill spends almost every free minute in his studio.

"it's an obsessive habit," he says.  "this morning i was up by 7, took a couple bong hits and was recording by 7:30."

music has been all-consuming for a long time. 

"my dad was a dj.  i got exposed to tons of music.  growing up, i got tons of legos and tons of records."

bill's first favorite album was "born to mac," by too $hort.  now bill obsessively writes his own music. 

"when i'm just walking around, i write a 16 [i.e., 16 bars of music- samara]  when i hear a beat, the song's written in an hour and a half....i do all the writing, recording, producing, and mixing-- the whole concept from top to bottom."

bill in his home studio

nationally, bill e. shakes has recorded with artists like aceyalone.  locally, bill and boy dirrt have been collaborating since they met in 2002.

unfortunately, boy dirrt, whose tracks simple life  and new mexico freestyle helped put him on the map, was not available to interview, since he is currently serving a couple years up in indiana on drug charges.  he turned himself in on january 7th of this year. 

it's a damn shame, says bill.  "i respect the fact that you need to eat, but there are so many guys that just up and went to jail and that's it.  you never see them again.  it's an epidemic in the rap game."

however, bill is still in abq, puffin lala and makin dolla.  he's put 21 releases on fat fish records, an albuquerque label.

he was signed at one point with universal, but nothing was released.  once the company decided bill e. shakes was not going to be their next mega producer, the project was shelved.  that was okay with bill, who hated working with the company's artists and repertoire division.  a & r reps essentially act as creative coaches.

"i'm all for being a team player and coming up with some pop hits, but they have you work with this dude doesn't even make music.  my guy was an nba player." 

bill moved back to albuquerque and signed with fat fish records in 2005.  you can hear his current release, the shakedown here.  his next project, "creature of habit," will be out this spring.



listen to the shakedown here:
the shakedown part i
the shakedown part ii
 
bill e. shakes
albuquerque, nm