As festival season begins, kicking off with BUKU Music and Art Project in New Orleans, festival junkies are making their stage-hopping schedules.
Well-known artists, as well as up-and-comers, come together to create a weekend full of entertainment. Among the up-and-comers is James Prudhomme, also known as Suicideyear, a Baton Rouge native whose music is being discovered not only in Louisiana but around the world.
Prudhomme knew music would be a big part of his life from an early age. He was in choir for three years and taught himself how to play guitar. After a year of high school, Prudhomme dropped out and put his full attention toward his music, gravitating more toward alternative rock and trap style music.
He credits artists such as Daniel Johnston and Jay Reatard, as well as others signed to Matador Records as early influences.
“Early 2011 I got into making rap beats and stuff,” Prudhomme said.
In 2012, Prudhomme released a collection of music he had done on his own, without any rappers and from there went on to collaborate with rap artists more and more steadily. While producing his own music, he continued to do collaborative work.
“The rappers’ buzz and acclaim helped a lot,” Prudhomme said. “Before that I didn’t really have my name out there. That’s when people began to take interest in my individual work,”
It will be a busy 2015 for Prudhomme, and he plans to grow his music and his following . He has a large fan base in Europe due to popularity of dance music in the youth culture.
“Bromance Records, Brodinski specifically, has put some of my work on releases of theirs,” Prudhomme said. “They have a pretty big following.”
He hopes to bring live instruments into to his work, refine his live set and continue to work with other rappers to produce new songs. Prudhomme wouldn’t reveal much about his collaborations but said “cool things are happening.”
At BUKU, Prudhomme said his set will be a mixture of pop, drill and grime elements.
On Jan. 29, Prudhomme kicks off a European tour starting in Berlin at a music and arts festival called CTM. From there he’ll make stops in Stockholm, Paris, Vienna, Edinburgh, London and Brighton. He’ll wrap up the tour in Spain just in time to return to the states for South by Southwest in Austin, Texas.
Prudhomme will also be reissuing his “Japan” mixtape, which was previously only available digitally. It will feature original material from the mixtape as well as unreleased material. He also has a new LP on the horizon, expected to be out this year.