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Years of growth, struggle and turning points can help with artistic creativity when it comes to music, and that is exactly the case with Los Angeles based hip-hop artist Proclaim, who has just released his third album titled Climbing Higher.
The new features a remix of the song “Personal Expressions,” which is a polished rendition of a track that appeared on his first album Question Everything. Proclaim said it is a biography telling his life story, and this time around it is with a new beat that is more up-tempo.
“I am reintroducing myself to the world,” Proclaim said. “It’s all still accurate. It’s still there, an introduction of who I am and things I went through, and how it brought me to where I am today.”
Proclaim tells the story of his evolution as a person, singing:
“Former gangster, former thug, yes I was a drug dealer
Now I rock mics, just call me the soul healer”
He adds, “I’m sharing personal rhymes, hoping that you’ll see a sign, change your life in time, maybe I can free your mind.”
Proclaim grew up in East Los Angeles and was enthralled by the West Coast rap culture, listening to the likes of Dr. Dre and the Death Row scene. While it spoke to him at a young age, he said the content wasn’t something he could talk about despite living that kind of lifestyle. It wasn’t something he wanted to represent or promote. Once he hit college he discovered East Coast hip-hop, saying Common, Talib Kweli, Nas, Gang Starr and Mos Def were huge on his inspiration list.
“It was the underground, intellectual, conscious type hip-hop that I didn’t even know existed,” Proclaim said. “I thought wow, this is cool, I could talk about this stuff. That really inspired me to write my own stuff. I starting writing my own verses, learned how to DJ, how to make beats, how to record, and built a home studio.”
Proclaim describes his style as “conscious, political, philosophical musings on life and experience.”
He explained that he made two albums, Question Everything and Necessary Dissent, and while he took a break for several years, the drive to make music unexpectedly came back when he met his wife. Proclaim said he realized the mixing and mastering in his 20s was not up to par, and he had a big learning curve. He spent many years struggling and learning, and while he would never call himself a mixing master, he has learned to create beats to a level he is pleased with for his newest project. Climbing Higher is five years in the making, after plenty of trial and error.
“Having a fuller, bigger, clearer sound and a desire to a better sound approach,” Proclaim said. “I also just kind of graduated out of philosophical and political writing to more personal writing with life stories. There is more of a variety of topics instead of niche, sort of narrow things I was talking about on the first two albums.”
Proclaim started his musical career making most of his own beats, but he now focuses mostly on writing rather than producing. He works with a team to create beats, with producers he knows and others he has found along the way.
In earlier years he wrote his lyrics in paper notebooks, which he admits he misses sometimes.
The best music he has made, he said, is when the beat inspires the whole thing and the lyrics come out of nowhere. He said the song can just take form like he didn’t even write it.
“When I find an amazing beat that just speaks to me and the song takes form, that’s just fucking magic. It’s rare but it’s the best,” said Proclaim.
In addition to the sound quality improvement, Proclaim added his latest album is also called Climbing Higher due to the fact that he is at a different stage in life involving career and family, and this comes out through in songs discussing transition. The album has tracks that touch on the struggles he has encountered through life, and he hopes those who listen can relate to his journey in one way or another no matter what their own journey may look like. A goal of Proclaim’s is to make as much meaningful music as possible. He has master’s degrees in psychology and philosophy, and is a licensed psychotherapist in private practice in the LA area. He also teaches psychology at a junior college. The topic of mental health is a major influence in his music as well. He tries to be inspirational, uplifting and poetic.
“Life experience, struggle, tragedy, transition, I’m really into transcendence and transformation: becoming one thing and transforming into something else,” he said.
When people sit down and listen to this album, Proclaim hopes people can be inspired to listen to the stories and reach for their own goals.
“Reach for your own goals, your own dreams and reflect on your own lives and what matters to you,” Proclaim said. “The song ‘Green’ on the album talks a lot about money and how our society focuses on that so much, but it’s not the key to happiness. Just listening to the stories and topics and hoping that they stimulate people to help guide them in the right direction or provide some light on a path for them they’d like to move forward on. That’s my aim.”
Check out Proclaim’s music on all major platforms:
Personal Expressions
Spotify
Instagram
proclaimcreations.com
YouTube
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