The Rap-Centric Philosophies of Illbliss

The rapper, iLLBLISS, embodies the pristine elements of Hip-Hop. Across his music and imagery, there’s a unifying sense of consciousness which has been hard wrought, emerging from decades of deliberate work and positioning. On his twelfth album, his quintessential themes are reflected through an expanding personal palette, a masterclass in telling profound stories.

Hip-Hop is synonymous with bossy swag and few rappers from Nigeria reflect this as poignantly as iLLBLISS. Tobechukwu Melvin Ejiofor, the rapper’s real name, is a walking embodiment of class and composure. All his albums have chiselled a humane figure from the rocky privacy he uses to surround himself and those he loves. But now iLLBliss is keeping the mystique at bay; he’s a father of two and, more than ever, has the need to open up his life and his stories. The result of this is Sideh Kai, the twelfth and most personal album iLLBLISS has ever put out.  

When iLLBLISS got on a Zoom call with me not long ago, his signature baritone commandingly expressed his narrative. He speaks in a lucid, drawn-out way, his anecdotes elucidated through his wealth of experience in the music industry. For this album, he says, work started in October 2022 when he met Skitter, who produced all but two records on the album. He says: 

I met him like two months before then through another friend of mine he had just made an EP for. So we were sitting down, reviewing the EP, and he just played some of his beats, randomly. Just beats he hadn’t used for anything in particular and I just found out there was something very soulful about his music and I connected instantly with his production style. Then we agreed to meet up and maybe do a song or two. From a song or two, we ended up creating the entire project. 

Although iLLBLISS didn’t set out to make another album, the alliance with Skitter activated fresh ideas. While in the process, he began to conceptualize the body of work. ‘I’m pretty much an album artist,’ he affirms. ‘If you look at my discography carefully, I never just drop random singles. They are always part of an album.’ The rapper wanted to create an album dedicated to his two daughters and, more inclusively, feature a Gen-Z-leaning record that talks ‘about them in a satirical way,’ he says. ‘I also wanted to create a record about the spirit of Nigerians…so when these ideas started coming, I realized it was album time and I had just found the direction I needed for my next album.’  

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