Grown Man Business

It's easy to call P-Duble's career unfulfilled.  What is harder to understand is the man that has evolved.  His newest offering, will help to explain the growth.

     It's a rainy Friday evening in Columbus, Ohio.  Just hours after P-Duble left producer Ty Wills' newly finished studio in the city's downtown district, he's back at it again, making sense of his slow-crafted, year-long creation.  “When I started recording, I ain't take the time to do it right.  I had the songs in me, though.  I didn't record everyday,” begins P-dub.  “I might come to the studio, do a song or two in like two hours and then not come-back for a month or two.”

     This approach might seem unnecessary for an artist whose musical genre (Christian Rap) is not as popular and doesn't move as many units as its non-religious counterpart.  Instead of embitterment, the thirty-four year old MC explains that he had to re-create himself through Jesus Christ.  “I played my EP for some other kats (strangers) and they just kept tellin' me the album was crazy,” he says with a laugh.  After that EP, P-Duble has taken it upon himself to win back the lost through the process of saturation and retention.

     Along with the return, the rapper born Keith Scarlett has also tried to shake a reputation that he believes belongs in the past.  “A lot of people look at Christian rap and take the stereo-type that goes along with it and I get that character stamped on me for real,” says a candid P.  Today, the rapper, who chuckles often in his speech, claims to have moved beyond the mediocre, cookie-cutter beats and hooks persona, which has fallen upon the Christian Hip-Hop World.  “I don't need people to tell me the mistakes I've made in my life, I know them.”  Revelations such as this have bled their way onto his new project.  One such song, “Suicide Letter,” is a diary-entry type of track where the once brazen Indianapolis rapper analyzes his flaws.  Structurally, the song incorporates an evocative James blunt sample in a way similar to Dido's role in Eminem's hit, “Stan.” 

     Interestingly enough, P-Dub admits this is how it was always intended to be.  After a stream of gangsta' style singles throughout his career, P-Duble segued to a more personal style in 2006.”All I really want is people to understand this:  When I make a club track and a party popper, I'm makin' it to celebrate and worship the Lord or to draw in non-believers.  I gotta' do it, because the people like it.  But it be them songs that are true street tracks and personal and deep, those are the songs that really have the true meaning; they're real,” he says today.  Still searching for that ever-elusive credibility, perhaps this shift of gears will give P-dub the distinction he seeks and can combat the party, ring-tone inspired raps coming from many of his peers.  Perhaps that is why his new project, overseen by Ty Wills, enlisted guests such as Nate Dog, Mims, T-Huzzie, LX, Luppy and Wills himself; all artists known for their ability to go against the grain successfully.

     This conflict is apparent in the music.  At one point P bluntly states, “I'm a Christian by nature, a gangsta' by circumstance.”  Calling a spade a spade, P channels his spirituality and contrasts it with his reputation and environment.  Analyzing, he says, “My beliefs and my thoughts conflict with what I have had to go through.  I'm a Christian by nature – that's what I am - so I know I'm supposed to live a certain way, but I'm a gangsta' by circumstance, due to my environment.  The things that I have felt I have had to do and the choices I have made in my life, it conflicts with my character or who I really am.”  The Hip-Hop world already understands the rawness and the reality in one's true gangsta' side, but the personal aspects of one's life isn't usually readily available.

     Even still, with artists dropping mixtapes within just single days of each other, will anyone care?  Whereas other artist's are busy defining their careers, P-Duble is speaking to the investors and reformed dope dealers of the world.  Asked about his lane, P is far more blue-collar.  “I've elevated my lyrical content.  I have children, bills to pay...I think this album reflects not only my life but a lot of peoples' lives.”  As Chamillionaire and Lupe Fiasco have done well riding commonplace themes to respectable chart positions, P might be at his best evolving from the corner thug that's feared to the person who stands beside you in the struggle, no matter their income.

     In the grand scheme, this new project likely won't crunch a tremendous hole into the stereotype parlayed onto Christian hip-hop artists.  The album might not generate any plaque-status either.  Still, with a fickle market and the decaying state of gangsta' rap, P-Duble stands to make his presence fully known at least one more time.  While yesterday's MC has often become today's gangsta, P stands as a testament to yesterday's G evolving into a man of wisdom.  With heart and soul, pain and vulnerability, this new project may live up to its expectations in defining what Jesus Christ can do for anyone.  But, P sees it much more simply.  He chuckles and says, “What do I want?  Saved souls.  I want partners in Heaven with me.”