Illmaculate, of the St. John’s neighborhood in Portland, released his album Skrill Talk this week and watched it hit #3 on Bandcamp’s sales page and top 100 on Amazon.com.
This is a huge—and much anticipated—step in his career.
The album is very good on all levels—featuring production from Sapient, G-Force (aka Calvin Valentine), Soleternity, Trox, Chase Moore, and Soul Theory, and guest spots from Tech N9ne, Inspectah Deck, Krizz Kaliko, Sandpeople, and Ness Lee.
Illmaculate did a great job grinding out 2011 and putting himself in a position to release a successful project.
On Rapper of the Year he boasts, “Push the album back, damn, a lot can happen in a year/Thank the fans gotta tell ‘em I’m just happy to be here/ Travelled more this month than most my peers have traveled in a year/Plus Green Tape named local album of the year/ Looking back probably could have gave me battle of the year/ Call me rapper of the year/ between my battles and my albums, that’s damn near 10 classics in a year.”
A summary of a successful 2011.
Illmaculate is best known as a battle rapper. He won Scribble Jam in 2004 at the age of 17. At the time, Scribble Jam was the most prestigious battle in hip hop’s underground/independent scene—other winners include MC Juice, Eyedea, Sage Francis, Rhymefest and Mac Lethal (aka the guy that raps fast about pancakes).
In one battle, Illmaculate beat Swan—a rapper from Detroit who was a heavy favorite. The win was especially big for the West Coast because he won using a new style being developed by freestyle battlers on this side of the country.
Traditionally, battles would consist of paired lines. A rapper would use a set up line and then follow up with a rhyming punch line.
For example, in the battle Swan says, “That’s right it’s getting grim/ everybody Mini-Me made a mini him.” (Referring to the fact that Illmaculate is especially short.)
The new style being developed on the west coast, and successfully used by Illmaculate, involved using more complex rhyme schemes. One of Illmaculate’s most quotable lines of the battles is, “I hate to sound Cliché today, but if you shaved your face with a razorblade, you’d look like an overweight Macy Gray.”
This is impressive for a combination of reasons: the Long A sound is used ten times in a single phrase, it made sense and it delivered a relevant observation about his opponent.
You can hear people’s brains exploding if you listen closely in the video.
From here, Illmaculate began a streak of winning the biggest tournaments in the world. He won the Spin the Mic Battle in New York in 2006—rumor has it the trip to New York to compete in the battle was funded by a victory check he earned at a battle at Willamette University in Salem—followed by consecutive victories in 2006 and 2007 at the World Rap Championships with partner The Saurus.
Vibe Magazine picked him as Oregon’s best rapper on MySpace. (MySpace was popular then.)
But from here the momentum began slowing down.
In 2008, he released a mixtape that got slept on.
In 2009, as The Saurus explained in his battle versus Illmaculate later that year, “he pressed a double album with Only, a kid from his crew/ That’s two cds, Only One was worth listening to.”
Although the line might have been painfully true, the battle with The Saurus is a pivotal moment in his career. After a couple of events that ended with subpar performances, he won the battle against his old partner—which currently has over 500,000 views on YouTube and was called “The Best Battle Ever” by many people judging the event—and used it as a jumping off point to reclaim his throne as one of the best battlers in the world.
His battles now receive over 100,000 views, and he has had the opportunity to travel the world promoting his music through the contests. He’s also huge piece of the success his group Sandpeople has achieved.
But even with his success, there was still not a solo project that people thought about when they thought about Illmaculate.
2011 changed this.
He teamed up with Calvin Valentine (best known as a member of TxE) and created the Green Tape–almost by accident. The story is that Calvin Valentine picked up an Al Green record planning to put together an instrumental album using samples from the record exclusively.
Illmaculate happened to be with CV while this was happening, and decided that the beats could use the vocals of a world rap champion. What ended up being produced was the Green Tape and was given Album of the Year by Willamette Weekly.
The Green Tape was recorded in early 2010, but took a year to release. By the time it was released, people were already talking about Skrill Talk. He’s been promoting the album for over a year. Release dates were talked about and moved and set and moved, and fans started wondering if the album would ever be released.
With the album out as of Tuesday, all expectations have been exceeded, including those of his fans and the people invested in his success.
Next month, Illmaculate plans on releasing a mixtape with Only One, and will be heading out to Europe on a tour with Sandpeople.
You can listen to and purchase the album at illmaculate.bandcamp.com.