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5/3/2006 We caught up with Ilyas, one-third of the Cincinatti-based group Tanya Morgan, on his way to work. Ilyas talks to us about their new album Moonlighting, having dreadlocks, making good music, and why no one should compare Tanya Morgan to Kanye West or Little Brother. What's up? I'm good, man. We have a show out in Denver tomorrow. I'm excited. We're performing with Lupe Fiasco. It seems like Moonlighting has been getting a lot of positive responses so far. Yeah. It has. It's amazing to us. We're sitting back like, "Wow." It's lovely when somebody appreciates what you put your heart and soul into. Did you think it would take off the way it has? I thought it would take off, but honestly, it's kind of taking off more than what I thought it would. It's much faster. It's skyrocketing right now. I'm just sitting back like, "Wow, this is really taking off." We've been getting a lot of very positive reviews. It's a blessing. How did you put this album together? I understand you did a lot through email. Yeah. We did a lot through AIM. We'd add pieces and send it around. It went from there and it just came together. It was real natural. We have a real natural chemistry. After the first song, we realized we sounded good together and we needed to keep going with this. That's a new way to do an album. Yeah. It's the wave of the future, man. All media is evolving to the internet. It's nice that we did this on the helm of this movement because I'm pretty sure everyone is going to be doing this soon. Did you miss out on the studio experience recording Moonlighting? That's always a beautiful thing, but I guess what helped with putting things together the way we did, when you're paying for studio time, you have to put it down right then and there or you're going to keep paying studio time and you're going to keep having to go back. When somebody had their piece of the song together, you could sit back and meditate on in. There weren't any time constraints or any pressure. That was an advantage to doing it via the internet. I think that's what helped Moonlighting come together so well. What was your inspiration for We Be? We had the beat and I think my partner Don started it off. He had the idea for it. He started the verse doing the hook and then he transitions into the verse. He did that and I loved the beat. We loved the energy in the song and we put it together. We were really hyped. I think that was one of the later songs we did. We have a video that should surface pretty soon for that. Why did you write Just Cuz I got Locks? Living in very conservative cities. Up in New York, there are plenty of cats with 'locks. Here, we're in the minority. Cats are running up to me like, "I know you got some trees. Tell me where the weed at." People are telling me I look like Bob Marley, or anyone you can name with dreadlocks. I'm just like, "Nah." It's annoying, especially after that Dave Chapelle episode came out with Lil' Jon. "Okaaaaay, you look like Lil' Jon." No, I don't. That song is me breaking it down for the shallow. Just because I have dreadlocks does not mean I'm a Rasta, Jamaican, or selling weed. What city is this taking place in? Cincinnati, Ohio. There are ignorant folk everywhere, so I can't complain. How are your fans in Cincinnati? What's funny is that me and Don live here. We have a group called Ill Will. We've done a little bit here and there, but not really. We didn't really get involved in the local music scene too tough, and it's funny because we'll be at the hip-hop spots and people wouldn't know that we rhymed, and then we appeared in the Source and XXL. The music scene is just now becoming aware of us. We did it through the internet and we performed in other places. Our music scene here is very scattered in bits and pieces. It doesn't have unity just yet. Hopefully we can contribute to changing that in the near future. What are your goals for Moonlighting? We just want the critical acclaim. We just want people to appreciate the music. We're not worried about going platinum. We just want people to hear it. We want people to know that we got something. We just want people to appreciate it. What was your inspiration for the cover art? That's just us being the prankster-ass fools that we are. We're just trying to throw people off. What we're trying to do with the whole "Tanya Morgan" idea is to just be so out there and throw people off, so the people that really like us like our music. If you know who we are, then you really, really feel the music. We didn't just want to be another group like "Three Dope MC's" or something like that. We wanted to try something different. Rock artists are very creative. They'll try anything, but hip-hop is stuck in a box. We wanted to push the envelope a little bit with our name and creativity, period. How did you and Don start working together? Me and Don were like enemies in high school in Cincinnati. We ended up going to the same college, North Carolina A&T. When we saw that we were the only two Cincinnati dudes there, we squashed the beef. We started rhyming as Ill Will. Then Don hooked up with Von Pea and they decided to do a project together, and he wanted me involved in it. How is your chemistry working together? The chemistry is off the hook. I can't even explain it. It's like we all connect and contrast at the same time. When we play a song, we all connect and we contrast just enough where everybody in the group doesn't sound alike. You can hear our distinct voices and styles. We get along because we pretty much enjoy the same music. We all appreciated the same artists growing up. Our common love for music really came together in us making our own music. What's next for Tanya Morgan? Tour, tour, tour. That's the next move. We're just doing as many shows as we can at this point to push the album. We also have a second video in the works. We're pretty confident that our video for We Be will get a decent amount of rotation. We're pretty much trying to get the music out there and let people know that we're not a woman and let people know that we're doing it. It's not good to be mistaken for a woman. Exactly. Especially when you're three dudes! (laughs) How do you feel about comparisons to Little Brother or groups that have a similar sound to you? I find it flattering as long as someone doesn't do it for the simple fact that we don't talk about crack and guns. Our content may be similar, but we don't sound anything like anyone else. People aren't used to hearing our brand of hip-hop. They're like, "They're not thugging. They're like Kanye and Common." In the mainstream, you have your crunk artists, your New York MC's, and they get separated. But if you're not thugging, they pretty much lump you all together even if you're music sounds nothing alike. I think you should just sling some crack. (laughs) We kind of have a track like that, but it's just us parodying the industry, Rough You Up. That's our version of what's popular in music right now. That's talking about it saying we could do it if we wanted to, but not really. That's disappointing. I agree. Have you started thinking about the next album? Yeah. It's going to be dope. It's going to be really dope. This is like an introduction. The next album is going to show more. You know what we're capable of now, so we're going to go very hard for the next album. The ideas we already have are crazy. We finished Moonlighting over two years ago, and we did Sunlighting and Sunset in order to promote it. We did those after Moonlighting. I'm about to go to the slave-driver. What do you want to say to everyone? This is like my new little bootleg saying: All the people out there that are really not feeling what's happening in the mainstream right now, go out and buy Moonlighting. I'm not just saying that to pad my pockets, but every time you buy an album, it's like voting. If you want cats like Tanya Morgan and Little Brother to be around, buy the album, it's like voting for us to be around. Even if you downloaded the album, place your vote and buy the album.

By Brian Kayser

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