Ill Semantics: Serious Wordplay

Dawn Raid Entertainment ushered in 2002 with their first full length artist album, Deceptikonz’ ‘Elimination’ and now the South Auckland-based hip-hop label are bringing the year to a close by releasing their sophomore long player with Ill Semantics’ ‘Theory of Meaning.’

While the Deceptikonz are dedicated battle MCs, Ill Semantics encompass hip-hop’s different musical elements within the diverse talents of core members Mark Arona (MC Patriarch), Roimata Moore (MC Nemesis) and Peter Tibble (DJ CXL), whose formidable turntable skills mean that the trio have a head start on their rivals in the live arena.

“We’ve been here since day one putting in the hard yards,” says Arona, who denies that the success of ‘Elimination,’ and indeed P-Money’s ‘Big Things,’ has created any extra pressure.

“All we want to do is do our best. But everyone’s going to feel it. We’re confident about that. We’ve basically sat down and analysed our counterpart’s albums and said ‘Okay, how can we bring these elements to our band?’ We worked really hard on it, adjusting sounds, writing our rhymes so that they’re correct and making sure that everything is banging. When we come, y’all better watch out, because everyone is waiting in anticipation because they know that what we’ve got to offer is crazy.”

Arona first formed Ill Semantics in 1993 while still at school, changing several different members before settling on the current line-up. Vocalist MC Hazaduz left recently to concentrate on his live duties with Che Fu and The Krates, however he still appears on one of ‘Theory of Meaning’s’ oldest tracks, Verbal Assault, which Sir Vere also included on Major Flavours 2’s Aotearoa-focused second disc.

“What we’ve done on this album is try and close a lot of doors on our old stuff because we’ve been around for so long and we had a lot of material that we needed to basically record and get out there,” explains Arona. “We based it on that because there’s going to be Ill Semantics 2, DJ CXL and Nemesis solo albums, etc. So we said ‘Okay, let’s base it on the basics and keep everything simple,’ which we did. The production is really simple but the style of songs has obviously evolved and got better and better. But everything was based on fundamentals established ever since Ill Semantics was first formed.”

The band’s moniker – which essentially means ‘cool wordplay’ was first inspired by Arona’s 5th form English classes where he studied “…words and the meaning of words. We went through name changes like anybody else but because I like to go deep into myself, with concepts and being creative, the boys were like ‘that’s alright’. But I told them, and this is something I’ve learnt during my journey of life, if you stick at something and develop it, something good will come of it. They were so busy worrying about a name as opposed to going ‘Okay, Ill Semantics could be a household name in the future.’ I told them back in the day that I would take Ill Semantics to the top, which is what we’re doing, and they know that.”

Ill Semantics set out their lyrical agenda on the album’s title track which explores the very meaning of life and features guest vocals from Tibble’s daughter Paris on the nursery rhyme-style chorus. “It’s a spin off of things that have happened in our lives, but not really as we don’t like to touch on things too seriously,” notes Arona before Moore adds: “… and make people think out of the square. It’s not very direct. We’re just trying to open people’s minds and make them think about why we’re here. Make you think about what life’s about.”