3 KEYS: Bad Man from Red Butte w/ 2 Dolla Will & Iceberg Theory
The ‘3 Keys’ series discusses intriguing albums, with three key pieces of commentary from the artists’ themselves!
To say 2 Dolla Will and Iceberg Theory are a peculiar duo on paper, is an understatement. 2 Dolla Will is a fun-loving hilarious rapper that specializes in clever soccer mom, playboy, Butte, Montana-centric raps. Iceberg Theory on the other hand is a rapper and producer that thrives in exploring spiritual esoteric ideas in music.
These two have been hard at work this year, first dropping the excellent Butte Chips earlier this year (review in May’s ‘Plugged In’ here). But this latest collaboration, Bad Man from Red Butte, is truly on another level.
Yes, it’s on another level because the beats and rhymes on this thing are amazing. But that’s just scratching the surface. This album legitimately sounds like nothing I (and likely you) have ever heard in hip-hop before. The reason for this weighty distinction is the album’s heavy incorporation of country music in its sound.
1) It’s safe to say that no rap album sounds like this in 2021 (maybe ever). What inspired you guys to go left and make a genuine country rap album in Red Butte?
IT: I had never really listened to much country until my dude Humpasaur Jones put me on to it. I started listening to some recommendations he made and then started digging on my own. I felt like there are a lot of good sounds in country music. And as a genre to pull from, it is vastly under-utilized, which as a producer and loop digger that's exactly the type of s*** I'm looking for. So, I basically just started making a s***load of country rap beats.
I rhymed on a bunch of them myself, but also started giving some to 2 Dolla. His sound was perfect for these beats and he seemed to gravitate towards them, so I just started sending him more and more, until we had 2 albums worth. Butte is the perfect setting for a country/Western inspired album, so the whole thing just made sense and came together naturally.
2DW: The album was basically inspired by the song we made called “The Devil Made Me Do It” on Butte Chips. That was one of the beats Iceberg sent me and honestly I wasn’t sure about it at first. But after doing the song, it was one of the best on the album so I was like, “f*** it, send me more country joints” because they’re actually real fun to rap to. Plus being from Montana, rapping over those type of beats made a lot of sense too. Eventually we made enough that I had to be like “yo I don’t want Butte Chips to be a country album, so we decided to make this [Red Butte].
It’s funny that Will mentions that “The Devil Made Me Do It” song off of Butte Chips, because it’s definitely one of the few songs that I really needed many listens to warm up to. But over time, I really began to see the magic in infusing these instrumentals with those classic smoky Western voices, buttery smooth melodies, and colourful guitar lines that are all routinely found in country music. To be clear, Ice is not sampling any bro-country in these beats. So we get very tasteful country tracks expertly weaved into these beats, in ways that truly impressed me.
On top of that, Ice really branched out and incorporated country from non-American places (or at least it seems), which created a significant element of psychedelia in these beats that stem from these interesting sample choices. A particularly amazing example is on “Polka Saved My Life”. The beat switches on this track create such a wacked out banger, seeing Ice come in with fury and bludgeon the track, allowing for Will to finish it off after that.
There are honestly so many incredible production moments on this album, so I’ll try to only keep my comments to a few. “Early Morning Riser” and “Crested Butte” showcase the beauty of these country vocals that Iceberg Theory was able to pull out of these samples. “Renova Hot Springs” is a ridiculously good illustration of the new dimension of crazy guitar work that Ice incorporated through his sampling, which gave Will a terrifically fun groove to rap over. “Tractor Story” and “Urgent Care” showcase some really grimy guitar lines and drums that make them sound like the soundtrack to an old classic Western film. Finally, “Father Sheehan Park” and “County Fair”, highlight some real classy sparkle in the beats, through its keys that come through heavenly. Simply put, this is one of the best produced albums you’ll hear all year.
As both Ice and Will pointed out, this country sound was a perfect match for the Butte-centric content and thematic backdrop of this album, which was nicely punctuated by various skits throughout the album that helped illustrate how Butte is truly a poster-child for urban decay. Since the mine-dependent city was once thriving, before falling to ruin once so many middle-class workers lost their jobs, and naturally resorted to drugs and crime as a result.
This country rap sound gave Will and Ice’s music a new dimension to their already great styles.
2) [For 2 Dolla Will] Was it difficult finding a pocket rapping over these country-influenced beats? Did these beats compel you to push your pen and flows to new places?
2DW: I honestly didn’t have much trouble flowing to these beats, though I expected to. Writing to them was interesting though, because I wanted to make my lyrics as “country” as possible, which wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be but it was definitely more of a challenge. I basically had a list I wanted to check off of things I wanted to say, which caused me to keep wanting to make song after song until I used up my checklist of country bars. After I started I was just having so much fun making them, I couldn’t stop, which is how we ended up with a double album. I made eleven of the songs in one day, and four more of them the day after.
Ice was right to say that Will sounds great over this country sound, because this sound is a perfect match for him. I’m not at all surprised by the comment on this being fun for Will, because he genuinely seems like he’s enjoying fitting his typical subject matter into these hilarious country tropes. A great example is Will, who plays off of the classic Western saying of, “this town ain't big enough for the both of us”, on “Montana Standard” where he raps:
“Regarding you and I, this town’s at max capacity with half of us” - Montana Standard
On the topic of bars, I feel like this is the best display of rapping we have ever heard from Will. There are so many great quotables on this project. Here are a couple of my favourites:
“Honestly, I wanna have a word with your parents/get you some ghostwriters with that early inheritance” - Early Morning Riser
“I wanna watch Lizzo scissor SZA” - Polka Saved My Life
Will also has a unique ability to find a pocket in just about any beat, evidenced by one of the highlights in “Renova Hot Springs”, which sees Will keep to his steady flow amidst a sea of fast-paced guitars. These beats are not a slam dunk for just any rapper. These beats present an interesting test for a rapper to maintain a tempo, and not sound awkward within these non-traditional grooves and sounds. Will passes this test with flying colours.
3) [For Iceberg Theory] Why do you think the country elements blended so well with the hip-hop foundation of your instrumentals? And do you believe that more producers should work with country sample material?
IT: I'm not really sure why it worked. As a genre, hip-hop is one of the most comprehensive, in the sense that there are few limits to what you can rap on. I always like pushing the boundaries with sample material and looping up shit that you wouldn't expect, something that makes the artist approach the song differently. To me, it's all about what catches my ear. If a loop grabs my attention, chances are it might hit someone else the same way, and then if the beat is calling from drums I'll add drums. As far as more people using country samples, who knows...I'm not the bouncer at the Honkytonk. I definitely have more country-based albums in the stash so I'm hoping Bad Man From Red Butte opened people up to the sound and they're interested in hearing more.
After listening to this album so many times, I can now see how great of an idea it was to blend country with hip-hop in such a significant way. But it really took a strong vision from Ice to go into the country deep-end, and craft such bold beats.
I love what Ice says about hip-hop being such a comprehensive genre. I think that point is so prescient, since the art form does such a great job of weaving in different cultures and flavours into its fundamental sound, which I can only credit to the naturally explorative nature of sampling, and the essence of innovation in hip-hop artists that has allowed the art form to thrive to-date.
By no means am I a big country music fan. I appreciate the more rootsy feelings country albums, but it’s never my go-to genre. So I can assure you when I say that, even if you are not typically a country fan, check this album out! Being jam-packed with almost 2 hours of fresh content, is just the icing on the cake.
And if you’re looking at the Bandcamp page for this album right now, and wondering where this 2 hours of content is coming from… one very important aspect about this album that makes it so great, which I have not mentioned yet… is that it is TWO discs! With the CD version of this album, there is an entire [formerly] secret Disc 2 of this album that you absolutely need to have!
Bad Man from Red Butte is an amazing piece of work, which you simply cannot get anywhere else.
Check out the interview with 2 Dolla Will here, and the interview with Iceberg Theory here.
Buy Bad Man from Red Butte here and stream below.
For more quality hip-hop content, listen to/watch The Rap Music Plug Podcast wherever you’d like: Apple Podcasts / Spotify / YouTube.
