A Blueprint Built: Defcee & Boathouse Talk the Success of Their Latest Album
Photography by Jonathan “Kayodidthat” Jagiello
After releasing five albums in the first five years of his career, Jay-Z allegedly recorded his classic 2001 LP, The Blueprint, in two weeks, including seven-to-nine songs in a single weekend. That album cemented Jay-Z as one of the greatest rappers of his era and laid out an actual blueprint that rappers are still following more than 20 years later.
Veteran Chicago emcee, Defcee, followed Jay-Z’s formula and channeled The Blueprint with his latest project, For All Debts Public and Private, which, by many measures, has become his most successful project to date. The rapper linked up with versatile beatmaker Boathouse and Chicago indie rap label Closed Sessions for an 11-track LP, mostly recorded at Soundscape Studios. The album, which was recorded over a short period of time in 2021, feels like an homage to early ‘00s Roc-A-Fella, as it showcases Defcee at his most confident and locked in over Boathouse’s glossy but rugged, sample-based production.
“I wanted to make sure if I was agreeing to do something on short notice, I wanted it to be something that would be exciting for me, and something that was going to be an opportunity to test out that hot hand,” Defcee told These Days. “Like a heat-check in basketball. You wanna make sure your jumper is still working right. So that’s what I was kind of doing.”
Boathouse said during one of the first sessions for For All Debts Public and Private, Defcee had been listening to The Blueprint and wanted their project to elicit the same energy from fans and peers that he gets when he listens to Hov’s album.
“You learn, years into the game, how to make music where you can, not emulate things that you like, but you almost take the resources from it that you need to kind of put back into your own music in a unique, original way,” Boathouse said about drawing from the artists that influenced this album.
FADPP was preceded by years of groundwork and preparation. 2018's A Mixtape As God Intended Vol. 1 kickstarted a steady stream of meticulously prepared projects and singles, each increasing his reputation with the pen more than the last, culminating with 2021’s Trapdoor, released on respected indie rap label Backwoodz Studioz.
The studious rapper, who is also a teacher himself, said the concept of plotting out his releases years in advance came from hearing stories from people who met Kanye West in the early 2000s before College Dropout came out. People would say Kanye had the titles and concepts for his first few albums and years later they would see his plan executed just as he said.
“I just kind of realized that I needed to do a good job of planning my releases out and then constantly building toward something,” Defcee said. “There had to be steps up, there could never be a step to the side. And the step-up had to be either from a creative sense or business sense, but ideally both. So I think For All Debts Public and Private does a good job of covering both of those things. It’s really dope to know both of those things can be done at once, and with people who I really rock with and respect.”
“I wanted to make sure if I was agreeing to do something [...] that would be exciting for me, and [...] an opportunity to test out that hot hand. Like a heat-check in basketball. You wanna make sure your jumper is still working right. So that’s what I was kind of doing.”
Over the past couple of years, Boathouse has also been building a strong discography, including the excellent collaborative LP with labelmates Mother Nature, SZNZ, his solo project In Velvet: Vol. 1 and 2, a Closed Sessions compilation, as well as producing tracks for Bun B, Open Mike Eagle, and IDK.
Coming off of SZNZ, Boat said he was looking for his next project, and Closed Sessions founder Alexander "DJ RTC" Fruchter suggested the producer reach out to Defcee. The initial plan was to do a 5-track EP, but they immediately clicked and quickly decided to expand the project to an LP.
“I knew the chemistry was going to be there, I knew this was going to be something exciting,” Defcee said. “It was going to be an opportunity to put everything that I had been working toward over the top. So that’s why I agreed to do it, and that’s why it came together so quickly. And why it made so much sense in terms of me saying ‘let’s shoot for five joints’ and hearing what we came up with, just saying to myself ‘this shit is too much fun.’ It doesn't sound like a finished product to me yet, we gotta maximize the potential of what this could be.”
For All Debts Public and Private also successfully merges Boathouse’s and Defcee’s creative universes, bringing together artists from Closed Sessions (Mother Nature, Kipp Stone), Backwoodz Studioz (Armand Hammer), and Filthē Analects Record Company (SolarFive, greenSLLIME). These artists all play a role in giving the album texture and varied voices and angles, which all come together in cohesion with Boathouse’s production.
“This is an album, for one of the first times where I’m super proud of everything about this,” Boathouse said. “I feel like I kind of nerded out on it. I love nerding out on stuff like this. I love being the one in charge of the sonics like this. And for it to also be put together in a way that feels effortless, that’s what I’m chasing after.”
On the album’s finale, “Moving Targets,” Def takes to task the old Chicago adage of its hip-hop community not being supportive of its artist, trying to move on from the “city of hella haters” label. The track is a plea to fellow Chicago artists to “present a united front as opposed to a divided one” and display the kind of support for one another, similar to how the major players in the emerging Detroit rap scene embrace each other. In the song’s chorus, he exclaims that “the target’s not a rapper, it’s the bag.”
“I think ‘Moving Targets’ was a misnomer, right,” he said. “Because the idea of a moving target is you’re still aiming to hit a target as it’s moving. But for me it’s more, we gotta change what the targets are. It’s not each other. There’s so much access to music, we really don’t have to compete for consumers or fanbases… It’s not like an either/or equation, it’s a both/and thing, and I just want to remind people of that. I just want everybody to be successful, I want everybody to see the rewards they’ve earned, and I don’t want people to get in each other’s way.”
Def said some of the inspiration behind the song was from reflecting on his own pettiness he’s felt over the years, including a subliminal tweet he sent out after being omitted from best of the year lists, including one from These Days. “I felt some type of way that I wasn’t included on certain lists at the end of last year, and then I said some petty ass shit on social media about it. And then I had to check myself later,” Defcee said. “I had to have a conversation with certain people from These Days, and I had to set myself straight… Yeah I stand by what I said in the general sense, in terms of there are certain people from the city who deserve more recognition than they’re getting. However, I did not necessarily need to subliminally throw a shot in the direction of somebody, especially a platform that’s given me a lot of love and respect in the past…I’ve talked a lot about how a lot of my bitterness and resentment has gotten in the way of ways I could’ve been building what it is I do for a wider audience. And I spent a lot of time whining and complaining about shit that I hadn’t earned that I felt that I deserved. And I could’ve spent that time actually working for it.”
In the months since the record’s initial release, Defcee and Boathouse have continued their momentum by releasing an instrumental version of FADPP on June 24 and a loose single “Cash” on July 5. Closed Sessions said they are planning to release a deluxe version of the For All Debts in the fall, with hopes of a new LP from Boathouse and Defcee in 2023.
Shortly before its release, Def tweeted that this project is “the major label debut I would have made if I'd ever gotten the look.” He said the goal for this album was to take the skills he displayed on his recent projects, including Trapdoor, We Dressed the City With Our Names, and ceenick, and make an album with more broad appeal and reach a wider audience.
This approach has already paid off, as the duo has gotten props from major publications such as FADER, Pitchfork, Complex, and Spin.
“This feels different,” Boathouse said about the attention they’ve gotten from their collaboration.
“It does, in a good way,” Defcee agreed. “You know, it really felt like Rich Jones hit me the day the album dropped. Rich had told me that it felt like a ceiling had been broken. And that’s kind of what it felt like to me as well.”
For All Debts Public and Private • Vinyl Pre-Order
Limited to 500 copies, Arrives Fall 2022 via Closed Sessions