Veteran emcee ILL Gordon ended 2024 with the release of his twelfth solo effort titled “Beautiful Dirt.” On “Dirt” the Chicago native delivered his customary punchline-heavy rhymes over diverse soundscapes that borrow from R&B, Jazz, and Soul music while preserving his penchant for boom bap.
Beautiful Dirt is an 8-track album produced entirely by Deka Derse. The project comes to us courtesy of Barzondeck LLC and features a lone guest appearance by Lil Wish.
ILL Gordon talked to The Real Hip-Hop about the importance of being mindful of negative consumption, why he was inspired by Canibus, Chicago’s musical diversity, and his new album, Beautiful Dirt.
TRHH: Why’d you call the album Beautiful Dirt?
ILL Gordon: It’s a lot of meanings behind it, but I chose to call it Beautiful Dirt because I feel like most things in life that are beautiful come from dirt — come from nothing. And then in relation to the album, I felt like the songs that I selected for the album this time it was kind of like I was making something beautiful out of nothing. I didn’t necessarily know what direction I was going into with some of the songs, so, it was like, man, let me just take this and see what I can make out of it. That was kind of the premise behind it. It was kind of like, man, you could find beauty in everything.
TRHH: I’m tempted to go somewhere with that [laughs].
ILL Gordon: Let’s go!
TRHH: I don’t think you can find beauty in everything. I understand the premise, but when I think of the new president…
ILL Gordon: Touché. Point taken. I don’t find too much beauty in that myself, either.
TRHH: But who knows, it might turn out good for us in the end.
ILL Gordon: Right. Miraculously it might be okay.
TRHH: It might be okay, but it’s not looking good.
ILL Gordon: You’re right on that one [laughs].
TRHH: On the song “Checklist” you have a dope line where you say “Who you know this cold that can produce heat?” Your music is heavy on witty rhymes. What is your writing process like?
ILL Gordon: Honestly, I listen to the beats first. I can honestly say just through my whole process I’ve never written the lyrics first. It’s always like I hear the beat and then what I feel in that moment it just kind of comes out that way. But I rarely if ever have written lyrics first and tried to make it match a beat. I always wanted to be like that extra instrument. As far as the witty bars, that’s just kind of been my style from jump, man. I always said I want to make the type of Hip-Hop that I love to hear. I love word play, I love lyricism, I love bars, so it’s like at the end of the day I’m going to always love to listen to my stuff.
TRHH: You’ve been doing this a long time, who would you say has that style that inspired you?
ILL Gordon: Honestly, Canibus. I was a huge Canibus fan when I was coming up, just because of his bar play, his word play, how he just pulled stuff out of nowhere and would make it sound dope. I will honestly say that he definitely had an influence on kind of how I like to deliver punch after punch or bars after bars. I feel like Canibus was like a supreme bar spitter.
TRHH: He still is.
ILL Gordon: Yeah! To that point, he still is. If I was to pinpoint one person, I would say he probably had an effect.
TRHH: I could see that. I think he gets dismissed because he’s so good I think it was impossible to live up to the hype.
ILL Gordon: I could see that. I think too that Canibus kind of suffered a little bit of what Nas used to do as far as like not having the right beat selection. You know a lot of people didn’t love his first album — I liked it because I like lyrics. But if I’m a person that’s heavy on production it’s like, “Eh, I might not listen to this song, I might not listen to that song.” But you’re right though, I never felt like he fully lived up to the potential of what Canibus should have been.
TRHH: Right, but that’s because he was so hyped. But the thing is, you could say that same thing about a lot of people, like Method Man. He’s had good albums, but he’s so good we expect more from him.
ILL Gordon: You’re right, that’s a good one. Method Man is that.
TRHH: It’s hard, man. It’s not easy to make classic music and that’s what people wanted from Canibus was the classic album. If you remember, he was doing the mixtape thing, he was doing features and then all of a sudden, he’s with Wyclef. It was a bad move. It probably helped him financially, for sure, but I don’t think it fit.
ILL Gordon: I agree with you on that. I was kind of shocked. I don’t know, but I feel like at the time Canibus you probably had a lot of people that wanted to work with you, why Wyclef?
TRHH: It probably was the check, man. What is it about the production of Deka Derse that fits so well with your style?
ILL Gordon: Deka honestly is like half of ILL Gordon, man. He’s really like a partner. He’s done the majority of my videos, he’s done a lot of my production, so, I think at this point where we’re at we know each other to the point to where he kind of knows what would fit. And granted, it was some joints on this project too where he thought I wouldn’t select this particular beat.
Once I actually did the song he was like, “Oh, okay, I see where you went with it.” But I think for the most part we’ve gotten to the point where we have that bond where he knows my style, he knows what kind of beats I might go for, but I also think I kind of surprised him on this particular project with a couple of pieces that I selected.
TRHH: Why would you say you surprised him? What was different about those that you picked?
ILL Gordon: So, the first one I would mention would be the song “Out the Door.” That wouldn’t typically be the type of track I would select, with the woman singing and even just the beat. The beat is dope, it was very Rhythm & Blues-ish kind of, so, typically that wouldn’t be my lane. I want the more aggressive, boom bap. That selection kind of threw him off and I was like, “No, let me see what I could do with it.”
The joint “Stalls” he didn’t even like that beat! He made the beat and he was like, “Man, I’m not really a fan of it” but I was like, “Man, let me get it.” And then once I did what I did to it he grew an appreciation for it. “Ferris Bueller” was another one, so, I think that I did kind of step out of my comfort zone a little bit on this project, but I also recognize that because me and Deka work together so much we kind of know each other’s style and they kind of fit like a glove now.
TRHH: On the song “Ferris Bueller” you say “Be careful what you take in, because it affects what you put out.” Explain that line.
ILL Gordon: I thought about it because obviously we live in the social media age now. It was at one point I was looking at my feed on my Instagram or my Facebook and I was like, “How did it get to this point? What have I been watching to where I got all of this type of stuff showing up on my feed?” And then one day I recognized that it actually did affect how I went on with my day. I think one morning I went down a rabbit hole of watching like hood street fights or whatever. I saw a little ratchet fight and next thing I know I’m watching like 5-6 of them.
By the time I’m getting ready to leave out to work I just felt some type of way. So, that’s when I kind of fell back and was like, “Yeah, you do gotta be careful about what you intake.” Even on the physical level and what we digest in our bodies. Let’s be clear, I’m not going to sit here and say I eat healthy food all the time, but I try to be conscientious of it because that also affects what you put out. So, it’s kind of like a holistic line as far as what you ingest in your mind and your body, it affects how you might project yourself.
TRHH: That’s so true, man.
ILL Gordon: You got to be careful, man. too much of anything can affect your perception of things. That’s kind of where that line came from to be 100% honest. And taking a step further, when I was in high school one of my favorite albums was Gravediggaz. I used to listen to that album faithfully! Like all day, every day. Knew that album front and back. The crazy part about it is that they’re speaking positive stuff, but it’s the tone of the album.
Every day even as a teenager my mother was like, “What’s wrong with you?” I’m like, “Nothing.” She’s like, “You just got a grinch on your face.” I realized I’ve been listening this album nonstop for like forever. That’s when I realized what we even listen to kind of affects how we kind of perceive things and what we even project out on other people and just the world itself.
TRHH: Man, that’s so true. During the election cycle I was consuming so much bullshit to the point where I had to cut it off. I started watching videos of babies laughing [laughs]. Like, give me something happy because this shit is too much! The racism gets me more than anything — it really bothers me. I had to step away like, “I’m doing this to myself.” I started watching like old stand up comedies and stuff that made me feel good.
ILL Gordon: You have to. It can be very, very draining. I just made a conscious choice that I have to be a little bit more selective on my intake of bullshit every day. I have to, because I want my days to go a certain type of way and too much of that bullshit is going to lead to me having a bullshit day. That’s exactly where that line came from.
TRHH: Earlier you mentioned the song called “Stalls” that has a clip from Curb Your Enthusiasm. Did the idea of the song come from the Curb episode?
ILL Gordon: [Laughs] Not exactly. Stalls, that was kind of me just talking my shit, for the most part. you know sending my face shots at weak rappers or what have you. People talk shit all the time, so, the concept was people talking shit, I’m talking my shit, “Oh, stalls.” Now because I do love Curb Your Enthusiasm, I do love that episode when he was talking about the stalls. So, it literally just became kind of like a perfect fit.
Once Deka attached that little part to the song I’m like, “Oh yeah, that’s perfect.” Initially it was just one of my “talk my shit” songs and then I was like, “Hold on, I’m talking about rappers talking shit, and when they talk shit I’m going to move the stall. In Curb Your Enthusiasm he didn’t even want the stalls!” So, that’s kind of where that came from. Yeah, I love Curb Your Enthusiasm.
TRHH: Me too, man. You know what, man? I was late on Curb and my boy was telling me about it. I’m like,”Yeah, yeah I’ll check it out.” I watched it and I was like, “This dude sounds like me!” He reminds me of myself [laughs]. Every fucking thing annoys him and I totally related to him, sadly. It’s so funny.
ILL Gordon: [Laughs] It’s hilarious. One of my favorite characters was Marty Funkhouser. Funkhouser was ridiculous. It’s definitely one of my favorite shows. What’s crazy is that I was not a huge fan of Seinfeld.
TRHH: I loved Seinfeld, but I have friends like that who like Curb but didn’t like Seinfeld or never watched Seinfeld. Larry is the George character, he’s totally George. He’s so funny, man. I’m a big, big fan of Larry David.
ILL Gordon: Oh, he’s hilarious.
TRHH: What’s your opinion on the current Chicago Hip-Hop scene?
ILL Gordon: Honestly, from my perspective I feel like it’s really buzzing. There’s a lot of artists here that are definitely active, putting out a lot of quality Hip-Hop music. I think that it’s definitely a buzz. I’m not even going to go as far as saying I think that it’s getting the recognition it deserves, but I do think that people are trying to start to take notice to what’s going on here in the Hip-Hop scene in Chicago.
So, for me personally I think it’s in a good place, to be honest. I wish it was more consistent bigger show opportunities for Chicago artists, but as far as the quality of music that’s being made, and just some of the moves that some of the Chicago artists are making, I think it’s in a good place. I think it’s in a nice buzzing place to where who knows, maybe the light might shine on the entire city, but I do think that it’s in a nice place.
TRHH: When you say bigger show opportunities what exactly do you mean?
ILL Gordon: For me personally, I feel like we all have to pay our dues. I’m not exempt from that, nobody’s exempt from that, that’s how I feel. But I feel like at this point in my career I don’t even want to do a show if it’s more than 5,6,7 acts on it. I just feel like that won’t be as beneficial when it’s like 10-12-13-14-15 acts on the bill. When some of the bigger artists that do come into the city or whatnot that’s looking for opening acts or people to be there with them, it could be a better look for some of the Chicago artists here as well. Granted, some of them do get placed. But when I say the bigger show opportunities, just a bigger platform to put some more of the independent artists here on a bigger platform. That’s what I mean by that.
As far as the shows go, I will give credit. There are a lot of artists as well as promoters that are trying to provide more show opportunities for independent Hip-Hop artists here. One year I performed at SXSW and the A3C Festival and what I was able to appreciate was that at every stage you could go find out about an artist that you’ve never heard of. I think that Chicago, especially during the summer when we have all these festivals, I don’t think that it hurts to put a local artist on one of these bigger stages just to kind of put them out there to a broader audience. I think that, that would be my only push as far as the Hip-Hop scene, but the quality of the music and the artists, I think there’s a lot of very talented artists here who all have different styles.
TRHH: So, true, man. That’s one of the beautiful things about the city. The same place they gave us Common gave us Chief Keef.
ILL Gordon: Exactly.
TRHH: And Twista and Lupe, and Psychodrama and Crucial Conflict, and even now the Herbo’s and Durks — variety.
ILL Gordon: Yeah. You’ll be hard pressed to find two Chicago artists that sound alike – you just will. I mean just growing up here, being born and raised here I cannot honestly say that it’s two artists that I’ve heard of from the city of Chicago that sound alike. Psychodrama don’t sound like Do or Die, Da Brat don’t sound like Twista, and I’m saying that because they’re all from the west side. Even from that perspective none of them sound alike and Lupe don’t sound like none of them! I think the beauty of Chicago Hip-Hop is that you’re not going to find two artists that sound alike.
TRHH: Who is the Beautiful Dirt album made for?
ILL Gordon: That’s a good question, that’s a good question! Thank you for that, hold on, I gotta think now. Who is it made for? Well, it was made for me first to be transparent. From the bars that I put in the songs, to the beat selection, my whole time I was like, “Okay, I want to make an album that I’ll listen to and feel good about. It was made for people that I guess wanted to see or hear another side of ILL Gordon outside of just the aggressive bar spittin’.
I think it was made for anybody that can appreciate just a good Hip-Hop album. I think that was a goal I was going for. Am I necessarily trying to make it for anybody? No, but I feel like these are the type of people that would appreciate it. That’s what I’ll say who it was made for, people that can appreciate the art form of Hip-Hop and people that love bar spittin’ [laughs].
Purchase: ILL Gordon – Beautiful Dirt