Australia’s regent of rap, Illy is still dominating stages as he continues touring off the back of his ‘Two Degrees’ album nearly a year after it was released.
Illy’s extensive run of live dates has him performing all across the country as part of both his own headline shows and festival sets. He is currently in full-swing on the regional leg of the ‘Two Degrees’ album run and says the shows so far have been going well.
“They’ve been unreal,” Illy says, “the tour’s off to a great start. It’s really awesome and obviously playing the west coast and northern Australia, it’s great to get to places you rarely get to otherwise.
“I love playing live shows, I love being on the road and I love getting to see the country so it’s kind of a no brainer because people are going to be there and they’re going to be big shows, so I don’t know why you wouldn’t do it. It is hugely important for me to get out there; these people in regional areas love music the same as people in the cities.”
{youtube}CH-tSXVrjKs{/youtube}
‘Two Degrees’ is Illy’s fifth studio album and one that is among his most successful, allowing him to embark on multiple tours since its 2016 release. Illy says it is because ‘Two Degrees’ fared so well that he’s been able to extend the album’s reach far outside metropolitan centres.
“We had this plan for the regional tour before the album came out, but it was dependent on how the album went as to whether we’d be able to do a massive tour or if it would have to be scaled back,” he explains.
“The fact we’re able to do this tour now, nine months after the album came out is a real testament to how well it’s been received. I didn’t think it could have been received much better; there have been a couple of big songs, it’s really hung around for a while and I’m very proud of it.”
The pride Illy holds for the album isn’t just because of its success, but also because it constitutes an important progression for an artist at a vital point of his career. Rather than leveraging his reputation as a world-class rapper, Illy says he focussed heavily on developing his compositional technique for ‘Two Degrees’.
“I definitely wanted to push the songwriting aspect of it more,” he says.
{youtube}hyPkpXZNbK0{/youtube}
“It doesn’t feel like it’s strictly a rap album because there is a lot of blurring of genres on it and I was very conscious that I wanted to do that because I think I’m confident in my abilities as a rapper, but I think I’ve also put a lot of time in and I’m starting to see that paying off as far as lyric writing, songwriting and making songs a little differently.
“That’s the thing I went into this album wanting to do the most, is have it be different to the previous stuff.”
When Illy brings his prowess to the stages at Sweaty Palms on the Central Coast, he says he’s looking forward to strutting his stuff for a pumped-up festival crowd.
“I love playing these [headline] shows, but festivals are a completely different beast and it’s good to be able to do Sweaty Palms, it’s going to be a lot of fun,” he says.
“Every time I’ve been to the Central Coast to play it’s always been a pretty raucous kind of show and I expect the same again.”
{youtube}L8laCbHBOrw{/youtube}
After winding up his live performance commitments and closing out the album cycle for ‘Two Degrees’, Illy will back working on new material with aims of releasing a new song before the end of the year and another album sometime next year.
“I have a few ideas that are pretty strong, so after this tour I’ll go to LA to work and hopefully have something out by the end of the year,” Illy says.
“I’d like to have at least a song out by the end of the year because it’s been a while now and as far as next year, I’m not sure but I want to get through this tour in one piece and re-evaluate at the end,” he laughs.
