By Odeisel
It’s not often that we actually see a savant manifest in front of our eyes and see them prosper while they still breathe. Jeymes Samuels (The Bullitts) has an incredible mind that synthesizes the worlds of cinema and film to a perfect synergy. From his own masterful creations to his pending debut album They Die By Dawn & Other Stories, and his collaboration with Jay-Z and Jay Electronica, The Bullitts has staked his claim as a force to be reckoned with. Get familiar.
Planet Ill: The Bullitts is a heckuva name for a solo artist. How did you come up with it?
The Bullitts: When I was a youngster I used to love the Steve McQueen film, Bullitt. I used to refer to my songs as bullets. When people used to ask me for tracks, they’d be like, “Jeymes, give me a bullet!” But really I was always called a bullet and it must have started from the Steve McQueen film. Also I wear so many hats; you have to speak about me in the plural.
Planet Ill: Steve McQueen is an icon of cool…
The Bullitts: They don’t make them like that anymore…
Planet Ill: They certainly don’t, man. You have connected all your songs to visuals and they say a picture is worth a thousand words. Why have you chosen that route? It’s almost as if your songs are scores rather than just music.
The Bullitts: Yeah man, I see myself reincarnated form an era where music was made by musicians. And for me, I’ve always done both film and music. I was kicked out of school at 11 and then I had to join my other school at 12 years old. Between them, my mom was obsessed with film. She bought me a Bolex 16mm film camera. So by the time I got to my second school I was already loading the magazine and learning how to develop film stock.
I was always doing both of them and I grew up with instruments in the house and I was always a lover of film so for me, in my brain, they were both the same thing. Film and were exactly the same. I didn’t differentiate between the two so I continued along that path until I was taken seriously professionally, and then that was it.
It’s almost like I see music and I hear film. I’m always merging the two. Me and Jay Electronica done a song called Run and Hide, and then I directed a black & white 16mm-esque French-subtitled movie; like a foreign film. That’s to pay homage to one of my favorite directors Jean-Luc Godard. But I’m always just thinking visually as well as sonically. And I just create both simultaneously.
Planet Ill: Have you heard Rome by Danger Mouse and Danielle Luppe?
The Bullitts: Yeah, really dope.
Planet Ill: They Die By Dawn reminds me of that Western aesthetic, where we melt the now into the then, but we preserve the classicity of it. What was the thought process behind creating They Die By Dawn?
The Bullitts: I have a motto where my mother, was “create from the hip.” Whatever I think, I just lay down. I was hearing symphonies; I always work with live musicians in my orchestra. I have a 20 piece orchestra on tap. It was just a case of me creating a song and that day I was probably in Western mode because Westerns are my favorite genre of film.
So that day I was in Western mode and then I was making this track with the Ennio Morricone-esque whistle. I was making my own version of that joint. Then I’ll build the whole score, and then I’ll throw everything into the Native Instruments machine and just turn it into a banger! And pretty much that was it and that’s what birthed the actual movie They Die By Dawn starring Rosario Dawson, Eryhkah Badu, Isaiah Washington, Michael K. Williams and everyone else. It started with just a song and it ended in this big extravaganza.
Planet Ill: If someone was to come to you now, with a billion dollars and money was no object and you had to create an album, with no regard to time or resources, how would that album sound?
The Bullitts: It would sound exactly like the album I have coming out, They Die By Dawn & Other Short Stories on June 4th. That would be the album that I’d make. They Die By Dawn & Other Short Stories is The Bullitts debut album. And it’s an ill sonic concoction of dopeness. It’s going to have Jay Electronica all over it. Yasin Bey F.K.A. Mos Def, Lucy Liu narrates my album. She plays a woman on death row called Amelia Sparks giving a lot of testimony before she’s executed.
These are just the things that I write when I’m in the studio and just how I hear and create music and so that would be the album. If you gave me a billion dollars, that would be the album that I’d make. They Die By Dawn & Other Short Stories.
Planet Ill: What happens creatively when ideas that used to flow freely happen to come a little slower? How do you get past a block?
The Bullitts: I never get blocked man! I never get a block. The creative process never gets stalled because I’m always on a hundred thousand trillion. When it stalls, I’ll get back to you on that one in a couple years. There’s so much new territory to conquer. I think as an artist, we think too linearly. Like a musician ALWAYS thinks about music. A filmmaker always thinks about film. For me they’re both the same thing. So if my brain’s not thinking about a song, it’s thinking about a screenplay. If it’s not thinking about a screenplay, it’s thinking about a song.
They Die By Dawn, I’m not sure if you’ve seen the actual trailer, that’s a 50 minute sick film. 5-0. It’s part one to a massive feature that I started shooting in the summer called The Notorious. Wait till you see what’s next, which has basically everyone in it.
For me, there’s too much to create for us to have any block. Life is too short; we’re just here for the blink of an eye beneath the sun. So we have to swag out as much as possible man. And I believe that when I have an idea, the only reason I have the idea is so that I can create it. Otherwise it will be given to someone else. Every time I get an idea it’s a gift. I have to create it. I know what the movie I’m doing next is and the movie I’m doing after that. And between it a swagged out album. I already have the next album in my head ready to go.
Planet Ill: There’s a darkness to a lot of your visual projects. A lot of film noir. Where does that come from? Is that personal or is it just if the idea fits what you choose to create?
The Bullitts: Well I think that a lot of it came from my mom because she was a film fanatic. When I was young, she was convinced I suffered from an ailment called, and you have to ,look this up, cause it’s also the name of the next The Bullitts album, so you’re getting an exclusive here Hyperthymesia. When I was a kid, my mom and a couple teachers thought I suffered from hyperthymesia, which is an inability to forget. She would tell me I have a photographic memory and I can’t forget anything. So she just filled my brain up with a lot of movies and made me learn about directors and her favorite directors and favorite actors and this is a really strange thing for a Black parent. And she gave me all of that knowledge so probably that’s where it all came from. I’m addicted to the arts; I’m addicted to cinema. I ‘m literally addicted to cinema. I cannot help but to write in that format.
I have a song for Jay Electronica’s album featuring Charlotte Gainesburg and Jay-Z called Dinner At Tiffany’s. Now we’ve only released the last 3 minutes of it; the Hip-Hop bit, the Jay-Z, Jay Electronica part. But the first 3 1’2 minutes of that song, which is going to be on jay Electronica’s album is all Charlotte Gainseburg and a 20-piece orchestra and it’s called Dinner At Tiffany’s. Which is my take on Breakfast At Tiffany’s. Breakfast At Tiffany’s had Moon River. And now we’ve got Dinner At Tiffany’s, which is like Moon River 2013. But it’s jay Electronica on a Hip-Hop album! It’s ill!
Planet Ill: Let’s talk The Great Gatsby for a second. How did you directly get involved with that project?
The Bullitts: Okay I can’t really reveal too much about The Great Gatsby, you have to really see it and experience it, man. It’s a real brilliant movie. For me I think it’s Baz Lurhmann’s dopest cinematic achievement.
Me and Jay have been friends for a while. We met on jay-Electronica’s project and the first track we done together was Dinner At Tiffany’s and Shiny Suit theory. And we’ve been cool since then, and for me, and obviously Jay-Z was the Executive Producer of The Great Gatsby [soundtrack] and Baz Luhrmann’s the Director, I came on board through Jay-Z.
Jay-Z appreciates where I’m coming from, artistically with regards to the way that I speak both languages, film and cinema. But for me, I’ll say, without going too much into it, I’m still a fan. To me Jay-Z’s the greatest rapper of all time. Bar none. What he’s done in the game is unparalleled. People can talk Eminem all they like or whoever but Jay-Z man, dude is something else. And working with him, you really see how brilliant he is. The way his brain thinks visually and sonically and the way he…like no one has more rhymes in their head than that guy. Working with him is an amazing thing to behold.
So for me, working with the greatest rappers of all time, one of the greatest artists of the 20th Century, easily, and then you have one of the dopest filmmakers of our era together. And somehow you got Jeymes Samuel in the room! It’s just the illest thing. For me, I’m still a fan so I just appreciative to be in those guys’ company.
Planet Ill: Have you heard the new Ghostface, 12 Reasons To Die?
The Bullitts: Yeah, man, with Adrian Younge! And I’m so happy that happened. When you watch that shit, I want people to go back and watch Black Dynamite. Adrian Younge is a gangster because not only did he score Black Dynamite, he edited it! He edited the movie! He’s a dope individual, like he’s like a miniature Jeymes Samuel! [laughs] he’s a gangster and that album’s dope. I’m a big Ghostface fan.
Planet Ill: Is there anything you would like to leave the fans with?
The Bullitts: yeah. I’d leave everyone with this thought. We live in an era where we have all the music and all the technology to go back in time and do research and to go forward and do something really, really new. And hopefully it doesn’t stop with just me. I’m doing a movie that is a Western with an all-Black cast and everyone’s playing real characters that really existed.
We learn all about Calamity Jane, and Billie the Kid, we never learn about Stagecoach Mary. Or Edmonia Lewis or Nat Love. But for me, the way that I merge music and film, I really want other people to do it and push the art form ever further than we can or more than we have done. Because that’s why we’re here. Push as far as possible man. And at all times, SWAG OUT! They Die By Dawn & Other Short Stories is ILL and The Great Gatsby is a cinematic achievement. A massive thanks to both Jay-Z and Baz Lurhmann for bringing me on the project and Jay-Z just to have the vision and the wherewithal just to say, “Hey Jeymes, come do this with me!” It’s a deep thing and really humbling.
Let the record reflect, Jeymes Samuel is a gangster! I’m coming to reign absolute terror on entertainment.
