Photo courtesy of A Dog Named Rufus
Emcee Rufus Sims and producer ILL City created one of the best Hip-Hop albums of 2025. “ILL Dirty Rufus” is a well-rounded release that’s heavy on boom bap and street raps. The albums’ title reflects a combination of both artists names while paying homage to late rap legend, Ol’ Dirty Bastard.
ILL Dirty Rufus features guest appearances by Ty Farris, Asun Eastwood, Fly Anakin, Vic Spencer, Grea8Gawd, Passport Rav, Philmore Greene, Dialect Tre, IAMGAWD, Pirate Reem, Armaniii FrmDa Chiii, Lil Keisha, Daniel Son, Chris Crack, Richie Wes, Jae Haze, ILLANOiZE Radio, Bizarre of D-12, and Rufus’ children Malia and Kiya.
The Real Hip-Hop spoke to Rufus Sims and ILL City about the late great Ol’ Dirty Bastard, making modern adult contemporary Hip-Hop, and their new album, ILL Dirty Rufus.
TRHH: The albums’ title and the artwork are an homage to the late great Ol’ Dirty Bastard. Why’d you decide to honor ODB with ILL Dirty Rufus?
Rufus Sims: I just feel like I’m coming with a real original style right now, like ODB. I feel like it doesn’t really have a father. I got my favorites that I grew up on, but the more and more I did music it was less influence in it. I kind of just do what I want to do on tracks and do what makes me feel good. So, that was my take on it.
ILL City: His saying is “there’s no father to my style” and his flows was of that approach. No father to the style, very unorthodox. I know a lot of people like to say stuff about the offbeat style, but once you listen to it and get into it, it actually makes sense in how he’s delivering it. We just wanted to highlight that the flow was different, that the flow was unorthodox, and it’s hard to copy.
TRHH: What was the process like creating ILL Dirty Rufus?
ILL City: We started doing ILL Dirty probably like three, maybe four years ago, probably around pandemic time. I had just really started making beats, so as I was learning and stuff like that. We both like Wu-Tang, so I think around that time too the series was out and we was just watching it a lot of times. Ol’ Dirty’s character made a lot of sense to bro and it just clicked right then and there, “Man, we could do a project called ILL Dirty Rufus” to kind of like highlight me and his relationship in a way, too.
When we first started it, I didn’t want to create a RZA type vibe, because only RZA can do RZA. So, it was just like, man, we just going to create our own sound, but the concept of the project is going to be more so the highlight of his ability to flow. Bro has a good ear for beats, so if he likes something he gon’ take it. So, it’s like he gon’ be like, “Hey, let me get that” I’m like, “Man, you want that beat?” But it made a lot of sense once we probably got around to like maybe the third or fourth track, and then he just took it from there, man.
TRHH: ILL Dirty Rufus has a lot of features on it; did you go into this album wanting to collab with lots of artists or did things just turn out that way?
Rufus Sims: I think it just turned out that way. A lot of it was just crazy. A lot of features that I was getting from different credible artists on the Hip-Hop scene just turned out to be over bro’s beats. Normally, I wouldn’t want to have a project with that many features, but when we look back at what we had it’s like, “Who, yeah we keeping all this.”
ILL City: Sometimes too when you’re doing a project like this sometimes the features are almost like the highlights, too. Bro has a lot of projects and a lot of his projects were serious. It’s basically him giving you his side, his story of the serious stuff that he goes through, the serious things that he went through. For this project along with the features we just really wanted to have fun, bro. This was like a fun project. I wanted to display a fun side of production for him, because he never had that. So, it was just like, man, we just gonna have fun and really rock out.
A lot of the features we were playing chess moves with them throughout the years, I ain’t even going to hold you. Some of the features we had got like two years ago and we just held it in a vault like, “Alright, we got Biz, we got Fly Anakin, we got Daniel Son.” Those are kind of like key guys that we knew we had to lock in. So, we were like, “We’re gonna lock in, put them up, and then we just gonna work our way around this.”
TRHH: One of the collabs “Actin Crazy” is with Bizarre from Detroit. How did that collaboration come about?
Rufus Sims: Bizarre just jumped in my inbox from there and was like “Rufus?” And then he was like, “Man that’s your real name?” and I’m like, “Yeah.” Then he sent me his like his Google and told me his name was Rufus, too. We started building from there and it only made sense to put him on ILL Dirty Rufus — his name is Rufus. He invited me out to a show out there, we went and did the show with him, then we end up going back. We did like a Chicago to Detroit type of thing where we went out there, I took some of the guys from Chicago that’s making noise out there, and then they came back up here. Me and bro just been rocking out ever since.
TRHH: One of my favorite songs is “Early Bird.” ILL, is the melody in that song a sample or did you play it?
ILL City: To be honest, yeah, it is a sample. With my samples I really try to be different than everybody else when I am sampling. I don’t try to do the same thing that other people do to just make it all sound the same. I want you to guess it in a way and if you don’t get it, you don’t get it. It’s okay because it still sounds good at the same time. Actually, that one in particular was probably like the second song we had.
Rufus Sims: That was one of the first ones we did, ain’t it?
ILL City: Yep, yep. You had recorded “Grits & Eggs” and then you did the Early Bird. Once we got those two songs established I knew what direction I wanted to go to make ILL Dirty sound the way that it is. Our connection just being on the phone, being on FaceTime, being in the studio, and then being at each other’s crib, we was just able to create. He picked a lot of samples that were on there. He’d be like, “Hey man, can you do this, that, and the third with it?” “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can do that.” Credit him too. He actually produced some of the records, too. I don’t want him to sell his stuff short either, he did.
Rufus Sims: I gave ideas, bro produced it.
TRHH: That’s producing.
ILL City: Yep, absolutely.
TRHH: So, you said you started making beats around the pandemic?
ILL City: Okay, so let me back up a little bit, so, I’m originally a drummer. I started out playing drums. I’ve been playing drums all my life. Music has been a part of me since the beginning of time for me. I never actually acted on it, like spent the money to get MPC’s and stuff like that. Of course, everything in the pandemic was closed, you don’t really got nothing to do, but you can order up some stuff if you got some money. I ordered me an MPC and just tested it out.
The way they’re making them now it’s so easy probably anybody could do it if they really take the time out, practice with it, and watch tutorial videos. I locked in during the pandemic and I said, “Man, I’m determined to make the illest beats, brush up on my craft, and get advice from different other guys to help me along the way.” I got help from Scripz, getting help from a Billionaire Boyscout, these are all our in-house producers, Logic, Mike Jaxx.
Rufus Sims: Scripz did the Who Sent You project, Billionaire Boyscout did the Loyalty project, Logic did the House Arrest project.
ILL City: And all those guys actually helped me throughout my process — the learning and just teaching me how to mix and master beats, however you want to set it up, and do it. I just became ILL really through them. It’s been a good ride I could say, slow down [laughs].
Rufus Sims: And bro progression was pretty fast, and he’s also my DJ. We got a lot of continuity with just working together.
ILL City: I do a lot of the show sets, so even doing the show sets and me being the producer, it kind of like made it easy for this album, too. Pretty soon we’re going to be performing it anyway, so we’re adding a lot of the new joints to the show. But creating the show set on top of the music and everything it just makes it easier for us. I don’t want to say Shaq and Kobe, but something like that [laughs].
TRHH: On the song “Wrong Artist, Right One” you flipped ODB’s most popular song. Was it challenging to touch a Hip-Hop classic?
ILL City: That’s the only beat that I didn’t do.
TRHH: Really?
ILL City: Yeah, that was the only beat that I didn’t do. It’s this guy named Brutus Beatcakes, shout out to him. He actually did that song. At first because I didn’t do the beat we wasn’t gonna put it on there, but the guy was so cool we was just like, “Nah y’all gotta put it on there.” Like I said, I didn’t want to create RZA. I really didn’t want to have something or have the whole album sound like it was produced by RZA. So, I literally stayed away from that and it wasn’t even a thought for me to do an actual Dirty song. But when the dude came through with the joint I think he recorded it in the studio the same day we was recording a lot of the tracks from the album.
Bro was like, “Damn you ain’t even do this beat,” I was like, “Nah, we throwing it on there!” He said throw it on there just ‘cause it was the concept that we had. So, shout out to Brutus Beatcakes, man. He actually produced that record. Now I did “Cap Crazy” the one before that and even though that’s an original, I wanted it to have that type of style. We didn’t want to do too much Wu-Tang stuff like that. So, we just made that section dedicated to him and then it went right back into our sound.
TRHH: I feel like the song “So Dirty” shows both of your versatility. As a producer ILL, is that a beat you had in the stash or did you make it specifically for Rufus?
ILL City: I specifically made it for bro, to be honest. We didn’t have nothing for the ladies and it was just like, “Man, bro we gotta get something for the ladies.” We had like two joints that we didn’t record and I picked the other one, he picked Dirty. So, he picked that one and I was like,” You know what? You’re right.” It’s smooth, it was delicate. I can’t sample snitch, I think you may know which one it is.
TRHH: No, I have no idea.
ILL City: [Laughs] I didn’t want to overdo it too. I wanted it to be smooth, right there in the pocket, and bro just did his thing. And then we added Lil Keisha — shout out to Lil Keisha. We just got this thing where we gotta make it make sense. It was a concept song, so we wanted it to have a certain concept. All our songs basically have like hooks and concepts to them instead of just us just rapping. We got to make it make sense, so that’s what we’re trying to do.
Rufus Sims: And I was going through something personally at the time, so it was right on time. Whenever I go through something I need to vent, get it out, or its gon’ live on my heart forever. So, that was perfect.
TRHH: On the album you mention how you set your sights on going global, but also on the song “Choir” you say “I’m rhyming to be highly paid, ain’t even trying to be famous.” Ideally, where would you like to see Rufus Sims’ career go?
Rufus Sims: I’m just trying to further my base in the underground communities to the point where I could really just make a living off the music. I want to just make worldly Hip-Hop, progressive Hip-Hop, modern day Hip-Hop. I’m a big believer in bars and hooks as well. I try to make the music catchy enough, but witty enough. In my mind, for me and the closest members of our small team, if we can make a living off this I feel like we can make even greater music. I feel like we got a contribution to add to Hip-Hop and to music overall. The popular thing — maybe when I was younger. It’s overrated, man.
I can see us going overseas a couple times a year touring, taking that back, and doing stuff here, too. But it ain’t so much about the popularity for me, because I’m quite alright with those that know and just catering to that. I see a lot of people fall from their position from coming into the game with a certain fan base and then switching it up too much, just to ultimately try to go back and cater to that same fan base that they abandoned. It don’t work out for most of them. Artists like Prince came in and when Prince died he had the same fans he came in with.
TRHH: That’s true. He crossed over though.
Rufus Sims: He crossed over , but it ain’t like he was trying to. I’m catering to a certain mind — more people that really respect and love the art of it. If I could choose my fans I can’t necessarily say I would go out and choose dumb people. It’s not really for kids — if they like it, then they like it. It’s kind of for middle-aged men and women who grew up on Hip-Hop and still really love that sound. I think it’s a nice enough fan base for that. I just want to bring something a little different to it.
ILL City: We’re trying to bring the mature part of Hip-Hop, something called adult contemporary Hip-Hop, in that form. Just to give you an example of what I’m talking about, like say for instance using the Grammys; why should Common and Killer Mike and all of them have to compete with like Lil Uzi Vert and all of them? The Hip-Hoppers that make that type of music, like 35 and up, should be able to be amongst their peers. We try to make mature Hip-Hop for our age group. A youngster may get it, but he may not. He got to really be tapped into that.
And don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of youngins that’s really tapping in to that lane where Griselda and Earl Sweatshirt and all of them at. For the most part for us, a lot of people do ask us why we don’t, and it’s like, “Well, we like 40 something years old, so we gotta make music for us that makes sense.” I feel like that’s what we’ve been pushing for the last couple years — making a more mature Hip-Hop versus trying to keep up with the Joneses or the status quo.
TRHH: Why should fans go out and cop or stream ILL Dirty Rufus?
Rufus Sims: It’s dope lyrics, dope beats, an original sound, all real authentic stories, and like I said, it’s what we would like to call “Modern Hip-Hop.” It’s almost like the music that we grew up on in the early 90s, but at the same time it’s almost like when the Challenger or the Charger came back out with the more updated version. That’s how I look at the music that we’re making. It’s a modern-day version of that boom bap that we grew up on.
Purchase: Rufus Sims & ILL City – ILL Dirty Rufus