Artist: Devin The Dude
Interviewer: Alexander Fruchter

I discovered Devin The Dude a little late. Well, that's not totally true. It was more than a little. It wasn't until 2003, almost ten years since he released Fadanuf fa Erybody with his group the Odd Squad, when one of my college friends turned me onto the musical brilliance that was "Doobie Ashtray," the song everyone I knew could relate to, and nobody could stop singing. Devin is that rare kind of artist whose songs seem to be tailored towards everyday life, rather than extraordinary tales of ice, drugs, and sex (even though we all know Devin gets down like that too). He's also the type of artist that can be utilized as a sort of litmus test for various groups of people. Let me explain.

Take two people, both very into music, especially rare music, let's call them "music snobs" for lack of a better word, meet at a party and start talking about CDs. They get into a sonic version of "Can You Top This" and start referring to any artist that they consider to be extremely talented and yet fairly unheard of. "Have you heard of Devin The Dude?" One may ask in a snobby tone, to which the other replies, "I loved his first album, The Dude." In addition to thwarting the first snob's claim for music snob supremacy, the second snob adds, "I also really liked his early stuff with Odd Squad."

Devin The Dude's music can also be used by stoners, underground Hip Hop heads, R&B cats, and a host of others as a test of compatibility. "Ohh, you know Devin!?! Cool." The thing is though, finding someone who doesn’t know Devin The Dude is steadily getting harder, and will become even harder after his latest album Waitin' To Inhale sinks in. The album is possibly his strongest to date, and features a wide array of styles and subjects that Devin has become known for.

I recently had the chance to speak to Devin The Dude about his new album, his musical influences, the origins of his name, and much more. Check it out and see why this Dude is making it big, just being himself.

SoundSlam: When you were in the studio and you finished recording "Doobie Ashtray," did you walk out of the booth and think, 'man I just made the best song ever?'

Devin The Dude: Hahaha, awww naw man. It didn't quite work out like that. But when it was finished and done with I was very, very satisfied with it. What happened, I did the original song and I used a sample, just put a beat behind it. DJ Premier who was a good friend of ours, he heard the song before it was released. He liked the song. When we mixed and mastered it we found out we couldn't use the sample. When I talked to him again he was like, 'man what's up with the song?' I was letting him know that, 'man we might not be able to use it because of sample problems.' He was like, 'man send me the acapella, let me see if I can work with it.' He did an incredible job with it.

SoundSlam: That's a classic right there. On the new album you have "Nothing To Roll With," which is sort of the opposite situation of "Doobie Ashtray."

Devin The Dude: Hahaha, yeah, somewhat…

SoundSlam: Was that planned out.

Devin The Dude: Naw, naw, not at all. I got a couple tracks from my partner Sendar from Amsterdam. And it had a country feel to it, and I thought about the country dude on my previous album. I was just trippin man. We were in there, it was like a freestyle actually.

SoundSlam: I was reading your bio on Myspace and it talked about how when you came up in Houston with the Odd Squad, most of the people that were breaking out of Houston talked about harder issues and focused on that side of life. You guys made a conscious decision to focus on the lighter side of life. Why did you choose to do that at the time?

Devin The Dude: We just figured, we'll just be ourselves. Being yourself back then was being odd. A lot of rappers had different names and characters inside the studio. We just wanted to be ourselves. We just wanted to talk about what we did and what we’ve been through, and just have fun and trip out about it.

SoundSlam: In the bigger picture of life in general, do you think that being happy is a choice?

Devin The Dude: Of course. Of course...A lot of people figure it's easier not to be. Sometimes they feel it's hard work to be happy, which is totally the opposite.

SoundSlam: Do you remember the time when you learned that, or did you always think that way?

Devin The Dude: I always knew that I felt better when I was laughing. Hahaha. No matter if I was trippin' about something somebody else said, or listening to somebody's crazy stories. When we were feeling good and in good spirits laughing, I always felt better.

SoundSlam: It's clear that you take your craft seriously, but the music that you make is also humorous. How do you ensure that you make it clear some of the songs may be funny, but you as an artist are not a joke?

Devin The Dude: I let some of the music speak for itself. If the people are really interested and want to see if I'm a joke or not they can dig deep into the album, each album, and listen to the songs that have some important meaning to them.

SoundSlam: On the new album you have a good balance of songs. Some are silly, and some are real serious. When you were putting the final layout of tracks together, how much did you consider that balance?

Devin The Dude: Well, I didn't quite plan it. Actually song for song, 'how do you feel with this song? How do you feel with that song?' I had like 30-35 songs that I had to go through and see which ones I was comfortable with. If you would weigh all the 30, 35 up, the balance wouldn't be a full balance. I just picked song for song and when we finished everything up I just kind of got some of the songs that were kind of cool, some of the songs that were laid back, some songs that were funny, some songs were serious, and just kind of rolled with it.

SoundSlam: You have the song on the album, "I Hope I Don't Get Sick-a-This." Are there times when you do get sick of this business? If so, how do you get yourself out of those times and keep going to have such a long career?

Devin The Dude: The people I meet, people I wake up to, my family, my friends, if I ever try to feel like I'm slacking or I'm through with it there's somebody there that will go ask me why I'm not in the studio? What am I doing? That helps out a lot right there.

SoundSlam: I thought it was real interesting that you follow up that song with "What A Job," which was incredible. How did that come out? You said you didn't plan as much, but did you plan to have [those two songs] right after each other to show those two different sides?

Devin The Dude: Kind of, yeah. The album order was a different order at first so I had to kind of reorder it so there's bridges between the two songs, a small bridge, not a huge bridge. Yeah, yeah, that was put there purposefully pretty much for the song order. That song came about, actually it was a one verse song at first with a hook, two hooks, one in the beginning, one at the end at first. When I was mixing and matching the album a lot of people were like, 'man, that's the song. You might want to get somebody else on there' They asked me, 'who do you want to reach out to?' I said, 'Andre 3000, Snoop.' Lil Wayne was already on the album. There were a lot of people I wouldn't mind working with right at that instant. I was thinking that could be a cool thing to do right there for the topic of the song.

SoundSlam: I read an interview with you and they asked you what other music you were listening to and you said that you listened to Paul Simon. I really like his music a lot too. He writes in a way that's real conversational. The way he sings is kind of like talking. It's similar to the way in which you touch on various subjects, every day things. What do you like about his music? Did he have any influence on your approach?

Devin The Dude: Just his voice, the smoothness of his voice and the mellowness of the music, how mellow that music was, and he didn't really have to strain. He never had to strain to sing real cool and his voice was like a certain instrument that he had, nobody could kind of duplicate.

SoundSlam: You should do a track with Paul Simon. I think that would be crazy, crazy. Never been done before. I wanted to ask you more about your name, Devin The Dude. When you made that name, what was the meaning behind it? Is it meant to be like Devin The Dude, like 'that’s the dude.'? Or is it more in a way like 'Devin The Dude a regular type of guy.'?

Devin The Dude: The name sort of stuck to me. It was just Devin at first. Actually, The Dude album, the name was just Devin. I was just Devin. I always wanted to be myself type of thing, so I always said, 'man, just Devin.' When we were in the studio working with Scarface, he helped me a lot on this project, towards the end of it he was like, 'man, who did you use to listen to when you were small, just growing up?' I was like, 'one of my favorite albums is Quincy Jones, The Dude album.' I dug that album up in the other studio, in studio B were we working in and brought it back over with me. We kind of listened to it, and kind of revised it, a rap revision of it. At the end of the project it turned out pretty cool. After hearing those songs Face was like, 'man, that's it. You’re The Dude. You ought to name your album The Dude. I was like, 'I don’t know man.' 'Yeah man, you're The Dude. That will be cool.' I was like, 'well, OK. What's wrong with that?' So we ran with The Dude. After we put the album out we started going on the road a little bit. Certain people would approach me and say, 'you’re Devin?' 'Yeah.' 'Devin The Dude?' 'Ahh, ahh, yeah' So that stuck. Even just trying to live I wanted to be just Devin. Just trying to live, everybody was saying 'you know you should keep The Dude name.' I said, 'I don’t know, that's the name of the album.' They found out there was a girl named Devin who was also in the music industry also putting out albums. So I was like, 'OK, we'll stick with Devin The Dude.'

SoundSlam: Have you embraced it fully now?

Devin The Dude: Yeah. It's pretty much there now man.

SoundSlam: Speaking of being yourself...How does the Devin The Dude we hear on songs like "Broccoli And Cheese," "Doobie Ashtray," "She Want That Money" how does that Devin compare to Devin Copeland? Are you pretty much the same person? What are you like outside of music?

Devin The Dude: Ohh man, pretty much with the fam man. I'm tight with the family members, whether it be immediate family or close friends. Getting together, doing barbecues, having fun doing events together.

SoundSlam: It seems each time [you put out an album] you gain more visibility, more people are checking for you. This album seems to be at a new level. Does it feel like this could be taking your career to a new level? What are your expectations for this?

Devin The Dude: I don't really expect anything man, I learned the hard way. Every album I expect to be huge, or I want it to be huge. Every artist goes through that. This album right here kind of means a lot because we've been in it for a while, and a lot of people still feel real positive about it. When we were wrapping it up a lot of people were telling me it sounded good. When we finally pressed it up, getting a lot of support, a lot of positive feedback. It kind of gave me little jitters. I didn’t feel like this throughout the other albums. A little anxiety kicked in. I just hope it does cool enough to be appreciated still , and I can still further my career with it.