Album Notes

A stalwart in Chicago's hip-hop scene for a decade, EC is known for his grimy, yet easy-to-understand rhyme flow, underground production style and songs that embody his upbringing and life in the seedy Uptown neighborhood on Chicago's far North Side.
E.C. ILLA first emerged in the early 90s with the cassette-only Invisible Man EP. He followed that up with the double vinyl ILL State of Mind, the Live from the ILL EP and the Vandillism Instrumentals Vol. 1. However, his breakthrough album was 1996's ILLA LP. The album perfectly captured EC's style and the Chicago rap scene in the mid-nineties. The album featured the classic "On ILL" which had the legendary video that featured Chicago breakdancers and graffiti art and received heavy airplay on The Box and BET. The album also featured "What You Be About" which is considered a worldwide gangster classic and is a harrowing description of the Chicago gang scene.
The "On ILL" video and the ILLA LP album were a big influence on such future stars of commercial and underground rap such as Eminem, El-P of Company Flow, Slug of Atmosphere and Sole. E.C.'s next album was 1997's Power Moves which was distributed by Universal and signaled EC's move away from underground hip-hop towards gangster rap. 1997 also saw the release of the second volume of the Vandillism Instrumentals series.
After Power Moves, EC worked with super producer The Legendary Traxster (Twista, Do or Die, Mystikal, Psychodrama, Snypaz) and contributed tracks to the CWAL BALLAZ Vol.1 compilation. He also executive produced the seminal gangster rap instrumental compilations, Killer Beats Vol. 1 and 2.
In the year 2000, EC released the vinyl-only ILL at Will EP which compiled some unreleased hip-hop tracks from the previous couple of years and signified his return to the hip-hop scene.
His new album, Natural Born ILLA, released in late 2001 on Chicago independent A-List Audio is a hard hip-hop classic and features some of the biggest names in the Chicago rap game such as freestyle champ J.U.I.C.E. who defeated Eminem at both the Rap Olympics and Scribble Jam, Blaze Battle Runner-Up Prime of the Molemen, MTV/Loud On-Line Battle Winner Profound, abstract rappers Rubberoom, longtime female mc Ang 13, Yungbuk of Psychodrama, noted mixtape dj Risky Bizness as well as West Coast indy stars Rasco, Planet Asia and Fanatik.
The album has garnered favorable reviews from both the deep underground hip-hop press (HipHopInfinity.com) to worldwide commercial and gangster print mags such as Murder Dog. It's a solid album with rugged production from EC, The Legendary Traxster and Fanatik and exceptional rapping from EC and his huge roster of guests. Check it out.