While browsing iTunes during nightly procrastination sessions, Bowdoin students may be surprised to find the beats of a fellow student just one click away.
This summer, Alex Healy '09 produced and released his first hip-hop album titled "Illuminati the Prequel." Although the project began as a simple four-song mix tape, the Brooklyn native worked tirelessly and turned the project into an album. He sold thousands of hard copies, released the CD on the Internet and made it available on iTunes.
Not only did Healy rap on the album, he produced it by himself.
"I was really a part of the creation process," he said. "I didn't just send it out. I work for myself and really get involved with the sounds."
Healy also organized the collaboration of the many hip hop artists who are featured on the album.
"These artists are really legends," Healy said.
He cited L. Maze, Kool G Rap and Godfather as some of the many talented features on the CD.
According to Healy, the album "draws from what hip-hop producers were doing in the early '90s and infuses it with sounds of the contemporary hip hop world." Healy said. "Lyrically, the album focuses on what is going on today. Specifically, the album is centered on city life in New York, what is actually going on. It shows all the bad things that nobody talks about and nobody gives time and focus to. That's why we call it the 'Illuminati,'" Healy said.
"Illuminati the Prequel" is the first album of a three-part series. The second and third albums are already in the works.
"By the third album we will really have told a story," Healy said.
Although Healy, an Africana studies major, does not study music at Bowdoin, living in Maine has given him an interesting perspective.
"Being in Maine has allowed me to have my mind more open," he said. "Even though my music is about the city, being in the city often makes it hard to make music. Here, this separated environment is so conducive to my work."
In addition to making his own music, Healy has began helping other artists too. He has been collaborating with California hip-hop artist Steven King for his new album.
"It's coming together in insane ways. It is crazy stuff, stuff you've never seen before," Healy said about the project.
Healy and King are also in the process of creating their own clothing line called "Heroic Villain." The clothes are not yet in mass production, but Healy says they will be in the near future.
The Steven King album will be available in 2009 and the next Illuminati album, "Illuminati: The Round Table presented by ATG & L. Maze," will be available in January 2009.