After taking a step away from music for four years, Detroit rapper Courtney Bell is back with a different perspective on music and his life, and on May 17 people will be able to understand all that Bell has gone through. Microdose is a project that shows how Bell found himself, and he’s hoping that his journey can help others.
Bell spoke with rolling out about his upcoming project, taking a break from music and the state of Detroit music.
How do you feel about the rise of Detroit music?
I feel like it’s been coming and it’s been brewing. I feel like what kept us from crossing over to that next level was us coming together because there’s a lot of secret animosity, a lot of secret beefs in the city and all of that. That kept certain artists from connecting with other artists from the east side to the west side because it’s an east side and a west side [division] back home. A lot of people are putting their pride to the side and their ego to the side if there’s no death [as a result] on either side behind it and it’s just petty beef.
A lot of artists are starting to come together and support, and I feel like that’s one of the biggest missing elements that we didn’t have as a city. … You come down here to Atlanta, [and] all of these people down here are doing records with each other. They’re pushing each other, and they’re climbing on each other’s back to help the next one. Same thing with LA. In certain markets that you go into the artists are coming together, so I feel like the more we come together, the easier that it’s going to be. But [Detroit’s] been brewing. We’ve been on fire.
Tell us about your new music.
From the pandemic up until now, I took time away to get my mental state together, spiritually find myself, rediscover myself and start to deal with a lot of childhood traumas. I delved into psychedelic therapy, was introduced to mushrooms and started working with a shaman. I took that time off to properly find myself. I was still working on music at a point in time, and I’m a reality rapper, so the stuff that I was rapping about was what was going on in my life. When I stopped and separated from the music, I went back to the street and went back to hustling and everything that came within that space. Through that space I found myself, and as I was doing psychedelic therapy on the mushrooms, I would be locking myself in the studio at the same time. … I started to create records that were totally left field of what I had gotten comfortable to create.
We came up with two projects. The first project is gonna be Microdose, and it’s just a taste of what’s to come being away from music. This s— changes every day. Life changes every day. Algorithms change every day. While I was away I was studying artists like Veeze, Skilla Baby and Simba. Those that were breaking the algorithm and seeing how they did it while I wasn’t dropping music. So now that I’m back in the space and we got two records out now, it’s just staying consistent in this space. We have the project Microdose coming out on May 17, and it’s my first body of work in four years, so I’m excited to get music out and then just stay consistent in this space.
