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Check Out iLLijah Moon’s Story

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Today we’d like to introduce you to iLLijah Moon.

iLLijah Moon

Hi iLLijah, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today. 
Man, I feel like I remember this specifically and it’s crazy whenever I think back at it. It was like wintertime 2010, I want to say, right before Christmas or around that time. My homie had just gotten a new Mac laptop for the first time ever, and he was geeking, he mentioned how they have this program on it called GarageBand, and you can basically make music on it and whatnot. Keep in mind I’m 13 at the time, about to be 14. And he tells me we should mess around with it, maybe make some raps or something we were heavily into hip hop at the time, getting more into that world as we grew too. It took us hours, to days to a couple of weeks, to figure it out, but we ended up getting it going with the damn webcam mic, lol. It was so funny because we were trying not to be loud, but we had to cuz that mic sucked, and we couldn’t hear ourselves. I mean, it was terrible. We don’t know Jack shit. But we made it work, and after, we took some time and said, let’s write some bars and then make a song. Found a YouTube beat random ass simple ass beat. Rapped over it, and then we were thinking about posting it on SoundCloud or YouTube. And so we did just that. It was hilarious and dope cuz our friends were diggin it even tho it was ass. And people thought it was funny, but also, no one else was doing shit like that at the time if I’m being honest. So, it was something that made us stand out. Fast forward that year in 8th grade I got cool with another homie, Kadeem. He and I had 2 classes in 8th grade, and he was an interesting kid haha. I didn’t know how to gauge his personality, but he was cool ass vibes. We had English and PE, and we would have little battles in the middle of class cuz we both had the corner seat where you’re basically the forgotten failures. We would exchange rhymes, and I saw he was extremely skilled, way better than I was. I knew that from the jump. Fast forward, and I’m about to go to high school, and one of my friends introduces me to another homie who is a family friend of hers, and he was gonna be new to the school and just asked if I could introduce myself and keep it chill til he meets friends and she told me “he raps and stuff too” and so it was a selling point at the time and people always knew I was a friendly guy so it was cool with me. We end up all linking up and making a lil collective and music clique. We would go over to my crib or someone’s crib after school every day just to hang out and make music. We did so much and grew together, but we also grew apart over the years for many reasons, unfortunately. For a while, I felt like my rapping wasn’t good enough compared to the homies, and I wasn’t writing the best. I ended up making beats and engineering for me instead for a while. Til I finally decided I needed to just go ahead and be creative and try writing more. That’s what I did, and I started to really take it more serious. At this point we performed at our high school talent show which was dope, it was a goal I set from freshman year, and we did that! I started to take music more seriously at this point, and after high school, we were hungry for making things happen, so we kept pushing. Most of us ended up going to school for audio engineering, which turned out to be a dud if I’m being honest, but that’s beside the point. It did give me some knowledge and a bit of a heads up in the game as far as the sounds and how to conduct yourself in a studio properly. Over the years to come me and my brother Kadeem artist name Malik McPherson would hit the stage for a few years in our early 20s, opening at legendary spots like Los Globos, the Viper Room, and the Whiskey a go go. We did some amazing shows together, we’ve opened for the likes of; Mike Jones, U-God of the Wu tang Clan, Chief Keef, KRS-One, and Onyx. With the exception of other backyard performances and parking lot events. We were really killing the game and staring to gain some traction. Until the pandemic hit. Our last show before the pandemic was KRS-One, which had been our biggest show yet due to the sellout show. It was amazing. We played with a jazz band of our talented homies named Solea. What a show we all had it was incredible. I took that time from the pandemic and post pandemic to work on my craft and work on finding the sound that is me. In that time, I wrote a lot of personal tracks and songs that get vulnerable about my life. A lot of which are songs that are still not out yet but will see the light of day this year. In 2022 we had our first show in 3 years, and it was a showcase with a bunch of artists, we were the direct support to the headliners but like every other show we had, our audience was bigger than that of the headliner. That’s one thing I can proudly say is that I may not have the biggest fan base yet, but the community of people who support my music and my performances always shows out to show love. After that, we had our most recent show opening for the legendary Onyx crew. That was a special show because it was one of the first shows I felt prepared on a different level because I took the time to rehearse a few times before the show. I rented out a space with my DJ and my homie Kadeem, who, for the first time, was only going to be my hype man for this show and not perform his songs. So, this was my first solo show. It was fun, and lots of love was shown; our crowd was huge! I knew after that show that I needed to take myself even more serious than I should’ve because I had OGs and younger people of all kinds hitting me at the show who didn’t know me but were impressed with the show we put on. I was humbled and honored to even be in the same slot as the legends. So, I made it vow to make this year the best year yet. I want to drop more music than I’ve dropped before and just present the world with more of me that I’ve had in the vault. I’m excited for the future and what the rest of the year has in store. I’ve made lots of fun connections with people, and I’m excited to see where it’ll all take me in the end. 

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has been a tough road with many life situations getting in the way, as well as not being focused as I would’ve liked to be but everything always led me back to making music and perfecting it. The roadblocks were mostly me not staying focused and consistent. Let alone the finances not being up to par to support myself, my family, and my music career. I was hitting what felt like dead ends. Even when doing the shows we did, they seem all too successful, but not without a fight in between. No one hears about those parts where you struggle with the promoter of the shows or having people hold your stems hostage over petty shit, not even over cash. People not communicating and expecting you to read their minds and getting mad when you don’t read their mind when clearly there’s much fault on both ends. It seems like most people in the industry only want to help themselves and will gaslight you about it to others. You gotta be careful how you step; I try and keep it cool with everyone because I’m not here to step on toes, we can all help each other somehow, but we don’t gotta be on shady shit. And I think sometimes people put too much emotion on parts of the business, and that interferes with future affairs. All I would want to say is these roadblocks can be avoided, but in the end, it’s the people you deal with firsthand. My biggest struggles were with myself, and if it was someone getting in my way, I made sure to move them aside or bulldoze through them because otherwise, they’ll think they have power over you by making them seem like they have the key that you want. The reality is you need to make your own lock and key so no one can come and take it or duplicate it. So, I set the record straight people could do shady things and feel a way, but I’m the only one that’s stopping me. I had a hard time grieving in my personal life, which music helped with, but it also was hard to push forward. I had about 10 years straight of constant death in the family. I lost close relatives and distant ones. It was tough pushing thru, but I did the best I possibly could every time. My dad’s death is the one that probably hits the most still. To Where I pushed harder and also fell into a silent depression, I fought and continue to fight today. I don’t speak on these things out loud. I tend to be a positive and happy person because I know that’s what pops would want and what he pushed even when he didn’t have an ounce of positive surroundings at many points in his life. He just did what needed to be done. Same with my mom. She pushed thru always somehow. And I wanna take care of her cuz she’s what I have left, and I want to be sure I can push through the roadblocks and make it through to the other side somehow. Those struggles follow me along with finding the time with a demanding 9-5 job that requires lots of random OT. Finding the time means I got a passion and I’m determined to make this happen one way or another. 

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Well, as I mentioned before, I have been writing music for about 14 years and almost 10 years, taking my music more seriously as a career path. I been playing instruments since I was in elementary school, I played the alto saxophone and acoustic guitar. And as I grew older, I got into writing more, and I loved what It did for me that feeling of writing a dope bar just sparked my interest, putting words together like making a science experiment. I’ve always been a fan of music, so it was no surprise I would end up wanting to become a full-time artist. I think what sets me apart is I have such a wide variety of taste in music that I try to incorporate it all into how I create my music and how use my voice in different tones. I like creating characters with my music and making it interesting so people can follow me almost as 2 entities. I want to create a world that people can relate to in many ways. My goal is to make mood music. Music for all moods, whether you wanna sit and chill to listen, study, party, rage, get angry, cry and or relate to. I want to capture all emotions in my music so that people can resonate in some way. And I feel that leaves a huge creative space for me because I also love film and want to incorporate lots of films and short film-style videos into my music and releases. I have many plans I don’t wanna reveal too much but the things I plan on creating are bound to catch eyes soon enough. I’m ambitious and want to show the world what this mind has been hiding and holding back. Stay tuned it might get crazy. I would say I’m most proud of being the opening act for KRS- One and Onyx. That’s a hell of a thing to add to your hip-hop resume, and it’s where I felt we had incredible shows where the crowd was rocking with us heavily. 

So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
I tried to make it easy for everyone; you can find me on all platforms that are social media, YouTube, streaming platforms at the same name. 

@illijahmoon on everything, I would say easiest way to reach me now is dm me on Instagram and I will give you my email directly, I don’t usually leave my email out in the open until we’ve talked a bit first. 

My name is stylized as iLLijah Moon with the capital L’s. But everywhere you can find me @illijahmoon. 

Contact Info:


Image Credits
Kadeem McPherson
Abel Alonzo

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