Second Womb | photo courtesy of the artist
Live from The Cave with Second Womb
One of the most important things to do as an upcoming artist is to stay consistent no matter what. There will be trials and tribulations that make some feel alone at times, and feel like praying for the perseverance to not quit, but one’s self-confidence makes them refute the idea of giving up. That type of consistency allows the craft to be perfected, more work to be displayed and a hunger for success to constantly expands. This type of consistency can be seen by Jersey’s duo Dookie Brown, an MC, and Father Earth, a producer, collectively known as Second Womb. I recently got the opportunity to speak with Dookie Brown about the Garden State hip hop duo’s beginning, work ethic and their latest EP Live From The Cave Vol: 19.
The Key: When and how did Second Womb come about?
Dookie Brown: Me and Father Earth grew up around the same area but I never knew him prior to the night I met him. I have a friend of the family, Guordan Banks, who was having this studio session in Philadelphia at Sigma Sounds and he wound up bringing us through…and the engineer of the session was Father Earth. So me and him kicked it outside, smoked a little bit and next thing you know, he had a beat, played the beat and we had a song right then and there that night. That was 2012.
TK: In the past five years how many EP’s have the two of you put out so far?
DB: 19. It’s wild with us because we did a project before we released the EP’s called “Makaba,” but we took it down because we wanted a fresh start. “Makaba” was us in our younger days, so we wanted to give a new sound and a new release to the music that we were doing. With the EP’s we released every month for two years, it wasn’t straight. We released in 2014, 2015, stopped in 2016 and then we picked it back up this year in 2017.
TK: Your recent project you released is Live From The Cave Vol: 19. In the first song “Kite For the Kid” you said “So homie what you goin do? / You can’t seem to find ya crew / Yo it’s only you, believe it’s true / You don’t believe in you can’t expect them to.” I always believe that in order to be a rapper, MC, or a hip hop artist you have to be able to show some type of confidence. How big of a role has that type of confidence played in Second Womb’s career so far?
DB: I feel like confidence in yourself in general is important. But musically, confidence, especially as an unsigned independent artist, is the only thing that’s going to keep you going. Having the confidence inside of yourself to be able to keep pushing forward, not caring what anyone else says about your artistry. Being your own artist and not letting anyone change you. That’s played a big part in us keeping a clear head in the music thing because it’s allowed us take risk in the music. We don’t sound like anyone else, we sound like ourselves.
TK: That’s real. The next track you got “Pray,” and in it we find you praying for everybody from yourself, family, friends, society, heroes, villains and your enemies. But there’s one line that stood out to me was “Pray our peaks pass through the ceiling.” I thought that was dope because it’s like you’re wishing success for everybody. Do feel that type of good karma has come back to you tenfold?
DB: Indeed. It’s more of an organic feeling rather than me wanting to say it because it sounds cool. That’s how I really feel, I want everybody to succeed in whatever they’re doing & pass their own expectations.
TK: With the last song “Isolated Affections,” the beat & even the flow sound like the emotions of loneliness, especially with a chorus like “Have you ever loved someone close to you from a far?” With everything Vol. 19 shows from maintaining confidence and praying for the world’s sanity, including your own, how do you prevent the overwhelming feeling of loneliness throughout journey?
DB: I feel like my solitude is the closest thing I hold to me because you don’t get another chance with yourself. I say that in a sense of if you don’t know you then you can’t expect nobody else to know you bro. To know yourself fully in and out, not to say that I know myself fully I’m still on that journey because that’s an everlasting thing to get to know yourself. But that’s so important just to be isolated and the music is the place where I’m able to express my isolation and give people my deepest thoughts. It’s not even us making music for the sense of you getting my story. It’s for my story to be told, and you take those lessons and internalize what they mean to you in your life.