"So basically, I wanted people to get a sense of the conflicted feelings we have when approaching the double-edged sword of Fame, and the best way I could convey that was by making people feel weird about being attracted to a fine ass jug of Kool-Aid...

Not exactly what I think of when I think of fame, but then again, I'm not a member of ILL-Literacy, the performing arts collective out of Northern California that is releasing all their music for free via the continuing series IB4the1.  The "multi-cultural" (and they'll tell you all about what that means) crew is full of Bell Hooks quotes, a fresh approach to music and music making, and seems to be as comfortable reading Cornell West than listening to Kanye West.  It's all forms of the same struggle, which serves to create different forms of the same expressions. We turn our First Look microscope on ILL-Literacy and dive into their Kool-Aid cover, their open-source music making, and much more.  See it below.

RubyHornet:   So iLL-Literacy is a performing arts collective? Not just a Hip Hop group but a performing arts collective. What is the mission behind this collective? What is it trying to accomplish?

DRIZZLETRON:  We definitely identify as a Hip Hop group, but like so many other artists nowadays, it's hard to encompass everything we do.  We just dropped our first record, but over the past five years we've existed as a spoken word group, a theatre ensemble, and a live funk band.  Each time we picked up a new project we found ourselves having to come up with a new term to identify ourselves, so I think "performance arts collective" is the broadest term we can work within without just calling ourselves a "group of humanoids." I'm influenced very much by David Bowie, Bjork, Jean-Luc Basquiat, and others who mastered what they were known for while constantly exploring artforms outside of their medium.  I think developing new crafts and talents is the core of being an artist, but with our results-driven world, artists today aren't really given the freedom to do that publicly (i.e. people saying that Kanye should stick to producing when he started rapping, and then saying that he should stick to rapping when he started singing).  But I think the process is the most interesting part of art, because studying how artists do it is how I learned to do it myself.  Our goal is to be as transparent and open as possible with the way we develop as artists, and hopefully people will feel empowered to do it too.

RubyHornet: So you guys are from the Bay Area. How much of an influence did growing up in that area have on your art? Socially, musically, etc.

DAHLAK:  Well, I'm actually from Sacramento.  It's about an hour and a half away.  There is a bit of a cultural shift from what is considered The Bay Area (to us Westcoasters) and what is Sacramento.  It's still all Northern California culture though.  I think the biggest influence the culture has had on my music is the amount of time I've spent in my car.  Especially in Sac, the public transportation ain't really all that out there and nobody walks.  So when I'm in Sac, everytime I want to go somewhere, I'm in a car.  And this is the time when I consume most of my music or listen to the tracks I've recorded.  So I would say, this lifestyle has pushed me to make music for people driving.  Not that you can't enjoy it on the iPod but I feel like you can see my vision more clearly when you're listening in the car.

N.i.C:  Yeah, you can tell Dahlak's from Sacramento *cough*.  But we all are from NorCal, I guess.  JK.  That's a Bay complex and it needs to stop.  My bad.  I would second what Dahlak said, and also add Bay Area music is rich for so many reasons and that richness has certainly underwritten some of our work.  From the free speech movement to funk to infamous Bay lingo, I would say our music leans to the left and is pointed in a funky direction in many ways because of the Bay Area.          

RubyHornet: A writer from Hella Clean said about your music, "Imagine going to a Baptist church, dressed in your Sunday best, and somehow you end up at the circus…. on ’shrooms…. with a mouthful of Sour Mambas and a handful of arcade tokens. I think that about describes it."  Why shrooms?

DRIZZLETRON:   If I were to explain the whole shrooms thing, I'd say that we're all definitely supporters of hallucination...by definition, it's when you realize that everything that exists within your mind is as real as anything else that exists in your mind.  And so much of our world exists because of imagination...airplanes, computers, and especially art.  And it's what makes iB4the1.1 possible...having an illusion of making something amazing, having hardly any realistic means, but believing in it wholeheartedly anyway and making it happen.

DAHLAK:  And also, Shrooms - from what I've heard :) - can lead to profound spiritual experiences.  And our music, specifically signified in "The HereNow", has a very strong spiritual undertone.  We want the listener to feel that quick, intense, emotional, mental transformation that can be compared to a psychedelic experience when they hear our music.  That's the goal at least.  We know that it's not something that can be easily digested or comprehended all at once.  It's meant to hit you hard, have an emotional impact, and then sit with you.

N.i.C:  I mean and also, is there any other way to go to the circus??  Shrooms are fun.  

RubyHornet: I noticed that you guys do several shows on college campuses. Why the heavy push on college campuses? Is there a certain demographic that you guys are looking for by doing this?

DAHLAK:  Me and Drizz went to the same college.  We got a chance to understand the college market and the way things work as far as bringing live performers to the campus.  I think we, Drizz especially, saw an angle where we could make a living as performers while serving a community that we were very closely connected with.  We understood the college market very well because we were IT, just a few years ago.  We get the anger, the humor, the concerns and priorities.  So it was almost the next logical step for us.  Push to the people who share our same roots.

RubyHornet: You guys also said that college campuses are always so segregated, and you are attempting to merge and diversify in a way. Why do you think college campuses are this way? And what can or should be done about it?

N.i.C:  Yeah.  One of our many goals is to bridge gaps by getting student organizations to produce events together.  Why college campuses are segregated is a big question.  Beyond the decreasing number of black and brown students at the university level in general...hmm...my REAL answer is probably twofold...

(1) At some point, universities began to recognize "difference" as something to be recognized.  All of a sudden "diversity" was important. Unfortunately, as opposed to a critical engagement with antiracist movements, this resulted in the institutional management OF diversity known as "multiculturalism" - which came to mean a celebration of cultures.  Celebrating culture ironically meant marking and defining difference (at least on college campuses) and served to further entrench racial divisions.  So in practice, theories of "difference" became totally compatible with, rather than a threat to, the rigid frameworks of segregation at play throughout our society.

(2) College is a time for trying on identities.  My favorite was the keg-stander.  Often, I've found, in college race and ethnicity become something to perform.  Which is great, and even necessary.  However, the historical purposes for any given student group (from BSU's that started in the 60s to various incarnations of the TWLF) have ported over into the 21st century as a funneling system because coalition-building has fallen by the wayside in light of (a) the decreasing number of black and brown students, and (b) a celebration of cultures where each must be represented as they are so often underrepresented ironically further segregating college campuses.  That was probably a longer answer than the question intended, but I never give a real answer to that question.  That's what I really think.  What I think can be done about it is also twofold...

(1) REACH OUT

(2) College campuses are often hubs also segregated from the general communities in which they sit.  Going beyond college campuses to build coalitions will unfortunately, but also realistically find you more people of color.                   

RubyHornet: I believe it was Dahlak on “Finding Emo” who said, "Me and him black white but it ain't that black and white/ the whole country voted for a man black white/ I'm one jump from that jump suit black white." You then go on to talk about the relationship you had with your mother. This whole black white theme that you’re working with here is saying a lot, but what are you trying to say? Are you searching for answers to the theme of black vs. white?

DAHLAK:  (Smiling) Well I'm glad the writing on that verse is interesting enough to be intriguing but dense enough to require multiple listens.  That verse is actually telling the story of the dehumanizing experience of being arrested and going through the legal system.  I was caught in a bad situation and it changed my life. Plain and simple.   I found myself questioning the person I always believed myself to be.  And that feeds into the Nina Simone-sampled chorus "I just can't lose myself".  At those periods, when you feel yourself going through a dramatic transformation, there is a part of you that wants to hold on - there is a part of you that is singing "I just can't lose myself".  But in the end, if you allow what's best for you, that old self will collapse.  So that's why at the end I'm just like "maybe it be better if I just lose it" - which can also be taken in a number of ways as well.  But I can't disclose everything.  Gotta still leave room for the listeners to figure it out.  

RubyHornet: N.i.C, I believe you said that one of the reasons that you guys make the music you make is to take down the white supremacy, capitalist, heteronormative patriarch. Can you expound on that for our readers?

N.i.C:  Haha.  Yeeeaaah...that would be language I stole from Bell Hooks.  A dramatic overhaul of our legal, social and political institutions however is not on the immediate list of "to dos."  In fact, I believe after using her words, Dahlak called me an "uppity Negro", which was perfect (and hilarious) because I somewhat misspoke.  The music we make is hopefully not politically heavy-handed.  We're not focused on "the man" or "revolution" by any stretch.  Which is not to say that iB4the1, or the music we make in general is not a political project.  Certain issues will always color the background of what we produce, folding in our life experience is part of the process (if not THE process).  However, at some point, "conscious rap" got trapped in a cliche, and became a stand-in for camel backpacks and whack beats.  I prefer dancing and humor when dealing with issues of race for instance, and if we happen to dismantle some part of white supremacy along the way, hotfiyah!!                  

RubyHornet: iB4the1 has a special cover. The entire package looks like a kool-aid package and the CD rests inside. Where did this idea derive from and what are you guys attempting to say as the kool-aid character is a woman licking her lips? Does this say anything about the ideology behind the music itself?

DRIZZLETRON: As artists, there are points where things happen that make you think you're about to blow up, or that you're the s**t, when in actuality you're just using the instance as an excuse to be on your own hype.  Juiced without substance.  Kool-Aid.  One of our most memorable Kool-Aid moments was a couple of years ago when our friend who does photography for Victoria's Secret offered to do a shoot for us and invited us to the studio he was working at in Chelsea.  When we got there, Adriana Lima was there!  It was her birthday, and she ended up calling us over to have champagne with her, and kissed us all on the cheeks when she left.  We were SURE this was an omen that we were on the "FastLife," even though we weren't really sure what that meant...and we're still not really sure.  But we continue to chase it anyway, just like musicians chase record deals amidst an era of crumbling labels, or how the victims of Heaven's Gate and the Jonestown massacre sought salvation through very unsubstantiated ideals...in the end it's all very cult-like.  So yeah, when it came down to designing the Gentleman's Kool-Aid Lady, I used Adriana's eyes as a reminder of the Kool-Aid we were on.  The lips belong to Angelina Jolie, who is at the top of the A-list that many-a Kool-Aid drinker aspire to be in.  But when you really think about it, having paparazzi around every time you want to buy a can of peas isn't necessarily an ideal life either.  So basically, I wanted people to get a sense of the conflicted feelings we have when approaching the double-edged sword of Fame, and the best way I could convey that was by making people feel weird about being attracted to a fine ass jug of Kool-Aid.

RubyHornet: What else can fans keep a look out for from iLL-Literacy in the near future, features, shows, videos, etc?

DRIZZLETRON:  We have a lot coming up!  In the spring we'll be touring our live show, which we're developing with Kamilah Forbes, director of Def Poetry on Broadway.  We're also finishing up the video for "Gentleman's Kool-Aid," and filming a new show with our former member Ruby Veridiano-Ching called Ruby Says Hi, where she takes artists out of their element to interview them.  The first episode we filmed has her in a swordfight with Theophilus London...it's gonna be great.  And of course, we're working on the 2nd and 3rd chapters of iB4the1, but we're approaching it differently from the first one.  For our upcoming records, we really want our listeners to be involved, so we'll be opening up discussions for people to choose verses, instruments, and structures, so that they have a direct say on how the records will sound when they're released.  People will also be able to submit their own contributions (i.e. live instruments, vocals) for us and other listeners to consider for the final product.  It'll be like an online jam session, and we want people to feel like these records are as much theirs as it is ours. The music will always be free, so the goal is to bring in the best talent throughout the world to create the best music for everyone to have access to...and for everyone involved to get some shine.  This is the idea behind Digit.iLL.Funk, our open source method of creating music.  

RubyHornet: This will work as a introduction for you to our readers. So could each of you give them 1 reason why they should continue
to follow the performing arts collective known as, iLL-Literacy?

DRIZZLETRON: We're always trying new things...so whether we score triumphantly or fail miserably, chances are it'll make for a great YouTube video.

DAHLAK:  Because the connection between all of us allows for the amazing.

N.i.C:  Shrooms man...shrooms. 

one of the dopest interviews I've seen w/iLL-Lit
written by Myk Blauuw , January 11, 2010

Big ups to the RH staff for this interview...I like how ADK did his research on their verses & things they've mentioned in the past, to make sure to get answers that really meant something.

The iLL-Lit cats are a great group of artists in the truest sense of the word. I'm sure 2010 is gonna be another big year for them.