Photo courtesy of NXMEDIXCRE
Two titans of Chicago Hip-Hop teamed up and created one of the best albums to drop in early 2025. Emcee IAMGAWD and producer Master ILL (aka ILL City) made an album appropriately titled “City xf GAWD.” The project is unapologetically Chicago as IAMGAWD spits slick street sonnets over ILL City’s sinister soundscapes.
City xf GAWD is an 8-track album courtesy of NXMEDIXCRE Recordings. The project is produced entirely by ILL City and features appearances by Rufus Sims and Jae Haze (The Lil People), GRIFFEN, Aakeem Eshú, A.M. Early Morning and Vic Spencer.
IAMGAWD talked to The Real Hip-Hop about improving as a songwriter, wanting people to know that Chicago never forgot how to rap, working with ILL City, and their new album, City xf GAWD.
TRHH: How did you get up with ILL City to decide to do City xf GAWD?
IAMGAWD: I got put on to ILL by the homie Rufus Sims. Shout out to Rufus Sims, Jae Haze, The Lil People. I can’t remember the actual joint, but it was definitely through Rufus Sims. I’m listening to their music and I’m like, “Bro, who doing y’all beats?” He’s like, “Oh, that’s the bro ILL City, he raw. I’m gonna put you in tune” and he put us in tune instantly.
TRHH: What was the process like creating City xf GAWD?
IAMGAWD: City xf GAWD is actually three years in the making. The first beat ILL sent me for this project was actually the beat for “Devil in His Eyes” and that was 2022. I think I even performed it maybe once or twice in 22-23. It was a slow burn because I had other projects being a higher priority, but I knew I wanted to work with him. As an artist, things get pushed around, sometimes plans change, and things that you thought were top priority they end up falling a little bit. Plus, it’s having my creative juices flowing.
I might have a batch of beats from a particular producer for a particular project that I’m not currently feeling at the moment. Not that I don’t like them, it’s just not getting anything creative out of me at the moment, so, I gotta shift the focus to something else. And then from there that’s how I can kind of reinvigorate myself and then come back to that after I do what I do with this over there. So, it was one of those type of situations and that’s why it took so long.
TRHH: My favorite song on the album is “Chicago Don’t Raise No Hoes.” It’s a song that I can see becoming an anthem. It has features from A.M. Early Morning and Vic Spencer. How did that song come together?
IAMGAWD: Absolutely. That was one of those joints to where that was at a point in time where I was really putting a focus on the hook aspect — the chorus aspect of songwriting. I could do it but I’m known for being such an aggressive emcee, a rapper, or whatever you want to call it. I heard it. I didn’t know what I heard, but I just heard the potential of that beat to kind of make an anthem-ish type demonstration. That hook was actually inspired by Nas. He’s got a line on “Suspect” from a It Was Written where he says, “Bond is my life, so I live by my word/Never fraudulent, Queensbridge don’t make no herbs.” I always liked that line and I was listening to It Was Written one day and I’m like, “I’m gonna take that and flip that.”
So, when I got that beat it just came – Chicago don’t raise no hoes. It’s just a different tempo, a different cadence. I definitely wrote that joint at a time while I was doing a lot of shows too. I was performing a lot, so a trick of the trade is to make songs and perform songs to where you can get crowd participation, to keep the crowd engaged, and not just have them staring at you for a 20-minute set or 15- or 10-minute set. So, actually have them participating and feel like they’re a part of the show. And just wanting to show some Chicago pride and just have something for us to hold on to and be able to chant with our chests out.
TRHH: That’s a winner, bro. I think that’s going to be big. Can you do a video for it?
IAMGAWD: Gratitude. That’s actually in the works right now. I’m trying to do it right, and I’m trying to do it justice, and do it the way I feel like it needs to be done. So, that’s the only reason we ain’t did it yet, but that’s definitely in the works, absolutely.
TRHH: Good. You mentioned “Devil in His Eyes” and that’s a song that stood out to me because of how good the hook is – the B-Legit/Sick Wid It reference was sick. Throughout the album there are great hooks; what is your mindset when it comes to writing choruses?
IAMGAWD: Shout out 40, shout out Cali, the Bay, all that. So, the same as kind of like the audience of the show — I want the listener to feel engaged, I want the listener to feel a part of the actual song, and to feel like that they can learn that hook and recite that hook with just a few listens. Sometimes I do write a little more technically intricate hooks, but that’s the part of the song to where I feel 100% comfortable in dumbing down.
Traditionally I’m not a dumbed down rapper — I can and I’m finding the value more so in that as I get older. I don’t have to rap so hard on everything. I could find different pockets, and different flows and attack the beat in different ways. With my hooks I take cue from artists like 50 Cent. I think 50 probably has the best hooks hands down in Hip-Hop and rap history.
It’s others that definitely do their thing when it comes to the chorus and the hook, but I just think 50 mastered it. He mastered it in a way to where it will still fit the song. You know a lot of his work is grimy, but it still fits the song, but it’s a melodic type of cadence and it’s a feeling that makes you want to chant it. Even when he did his girl records it was kind of like he still maintained that integrity. He didn’t never really leave anything to be desired with his hooks.
I think he mastered the simplicity, but also the importance of the hook, but still keeping it simple. He didn’t need to do too much, but they were infectious. That’s what I want to do my own rendition of. Shout out to 50, but I am who I am, so, I want to do my own rendition of that. I want to keep the integrity of the hook and the lyrics within the hook, but still make it simple enough to where the listener could latch on to it right away and participate.
TRHH: I’m glad you said 50 Cent because to me he’s one of the most underrated songwriters. He’s a hook master. He’ll have three hooks in a song. I think because of his persona maybe people dismiss how good he is at writing songs sometimes. But also, I would put Naughty By Nature and Outkast in that same realm of great hook writers. It’s something that I think underground Hip-Hop needs more of.
IAMGAWD: Absolutely, absolutely. I’m so glad you said that because that’s the one thing, it’s not really a lot of guys in the underground doing it. The one I could point to right off top that comes to mind is Stove God Cooks. He got the whole melodic thing and he focuses on the chorus, and the melody, and the hook, so, I think he does it well. But a lot of guys they just go in for 40 bars or if they do have a hook, not to say it’s weak, but it don’t stand out. Or they’ll let the beat play or something like that. I’m a fan of all that, because I do it myself. I’m not saying it like I’ve mastered the hook yet, but I think that that’s a void within the underground space that could really be capitalized off of. I’m glad you brought that up.
TRHH: Definitely. On the song “Change” you speak about your versatility making it difficult for others to categorize you. Do you take it as a challenge to rhyme over beats that aren’t necessarily what you’re known for?
IAMGAWD: No. And only reason I say no is because I don’t pick beats that don’t speak to me. I don’t pick beats that don’t evoke a particular emotion, or feeling, or wanting to write. So, I can’t say that I picked beats that challenge me, even though sometimes the beat does end up challenging me, yes, that is a thing. But I’m just saying that there was something there from the beginning from when I first heard that beat that made me like, “Yeah, I’m taking that. I’m going to grab that.” Even if I don’t do nothing with it immediately I’m putting that off in the tuck and eventually I’m going to come around to it. I’ve definitely been intimidated by beats before like, “This beat is so good; what can I do to add to it?”
Because you can have a raw beat, but sometimes you don’t get the right artist on that beat. I never want that to happen. I feel like I’d rather give it back and find somebody else that could do something that I couldn’t do to that beat. I try to be a chameleon, but still try to remain myself — remain IAMGAWD. I don’t wanna sound like nobody, I don’t wanna do my rendition of nobody’s craft, I wanna be me all the time. So, I try to find my way through a beat and to come with something that’s unique to me. It might be reminiscent of someone or some things, but it’s always me.
With “Change” that just reminded me, and I don’t know why, but it reminded me of one of those early 2000s like almost trap mixtape beats when the south really started taking over. It was just something about that beat and that was another one of those beats that immediately a hook came to mind. I’m like, “Okay, this beat has the potential for a really infectious hook or at least something that the listener could grasp on to and participate in right away. So, that was another one them joints right there. ILL City is a very versatile producer and I don’t think people really see that yet. When people listen to him and Rufus Sims – Ill Dirty Rufus, I think people going to see. That project I think has more depth to it. It’s longer than me and ILL’s and it has more depth to it, so he had opportunities to do more. But he did a lot within these 8 tracks, he did a lot.
The intro is not like the second song — the title track, the title track is not like track number three, which is Change, Change sounds nothing like Chicago Don’t Raise No Hoes, and so on and so forth. You got “Devil in His Eyes” which is more boom bap, you got “Living Nightmares” which is kind of like that golden era type boom bap, and then you got “Been About That” which is kind of like an up tempo beat that sounds raucous. It sounds like a calamity, confusion, violence. ILL is a super talented dude and I’m just happy that we finally got the opportunity to present the public with our craft and what we came up with.
TRHH: You mentioned “Living Nightmares” and that’s a song with some dark storytelling. How much of those stories come from things you’ve seen in real life and how much comes from just being creative?
IAMGAWD: So, Living Nightmares in particular, that’s just creativity. I actually got the idea for that song from the 50 Cent BMF series on Starz. Meech’s character is kind of at war with this older guy and it’s kind of like a generational struggle. He’s the old penitentiary guy and they’re the young bucks coming up in the streets and bodies are dropping behind their beef. So, that’s kind of where I got the initial idea from. That particular beat just felt like a story. I think I already had that hook. That I wrote to something else that I never used, but I always liked the hook.
I knew it wasn’t one of those infectious hooks or sing-a-long hooks, and that’s what I mean by sometimes I will go a little more in depth with the hook and it’s not meant to be sing songy, or it’s not meant to be easy on the ears, so to speak. It’s almost as technical as the actual lyrics and I think sometimes the song calls for that. That was one of those type of hooks to where I felt like, “Okay, I want to rap through this whole thing, but the hook has to say something as well.” So, that particular story was total fiction inspired by the BMF series
TRHH: What do you hope to achieve with City xf GAWD?
IAMGAWD: First and foremost, I hope to attain more listeners, keep growing my fan base, keep growing my support group. I want the listeners to step away from this project realizing that Chicago never forgot how to rap, Chicago still has some phenomenal emcees — male and female. I want the listeners to get a feel of who I am and understand that I mean it when I say that I’m one of the very best doing it today. I hold no punches when I say that. It’s not coming from a sense of arrogance, or cockiness, or brashness, I just know what I invested into my craft for as long as I’ve been doing it. I’ve been doing it for 20 plus years.
So, I also wanted listeners to know that I understand it could be a cliché at times, but real Hip-Hop is a thing and it still exists. The essence of it, the attention to detail, the hunger of the traditional emcee, the song structure, the song writing. Just the attention to detail and all those various and miscellaneous characteristics of creating from a musical standpoint when it comes to rap — rhythm and poetry. I want the listener to know that all that still exists. I get it, it’s a different era, a different day and age, you have to search for it a little more, but it’s still out here. I definitely want to put it on display as much as I possibly can, as often as I possibly can.
Purchase: IAMGAWD & Master ILL – City xf GAWD