About Me
Chicagos gritty Southside crew had humble beginnings. Illnature started while Tril, Prowonda, and Strap attending the same high school their freshman year in 1995-1996. Tril and Prowonda grew up together rhyming; they first met Strap at a basketball camp during the summer of ‘95. Initially, they didnt interact with each other much; however, that would all change about two weeks into January of 96. They found out during a lunch break that Strap did some rhyming and instantly invited him to a cipher in the gym bleachers, which became an everyday thing. Soon Strap invited Tril and Prowonda to his house to record freestyle sessions over industry beats. Satisfied with how they sounded together, they decided to form a rap group. Tril introduced the name Illnature; which is a name that Tril and Prowonda got from a long time friend before he was incarcerated. They all agreed on the name with no questions asked and Illnature was born.
After the creation of Illnature jumped off, they started going to open mics, Hip-Hop parties, and cyphers. Back then cyphers kicked off anywhere; they might kick off on trains, street corners, buses, parks or even in the malls. But the place where cyphers kicked off the most was at Chicagos Navy Pier. Illnature would come up there and start cyphering and before you knew it, a huge cypher would commence. This would go on every weekend until security came and broke it up.
At the Pier, they met many different crews around the city. As a matter of fact, that was the first time they got into a battle with a major crew called Nacrobats. Outnumbered and embarrassed, it made them determined and amongst them they said, "That shit will never happen again".
The once rap group called Illnature became Illnature Crew with the accumulation of two Northside crews, JMC and FTR and two Southside crews, BOSS and ICU. Now a full fledge crew, with up to 70 added members specializing in other elements of the culture such as b-boying, graffing, and djing, Illnature was everywhere representing. By the end of 96-97, they were making a name for themselves. Although known for crashing parties, they were also highly respected for their skills; they went everywhere battling crews for the throne.
During mid 97, Hip-Hop became more than serious: it became their life. Soon they started using their money to buy beats and studio time. After a while, they didnt have to buy beats anymore and began using in house production from Illnature members Prolyfic and Strap. Before they knew it, they were recording in house using Prolyfic’s four track.
In mid 98, WHPK 88.5 FM began playing their music, and they received some good feedback; that encouraged Illnature to record more and do live performances. However, as soon as things were really starting to take off, people started going away. In August 99, a hand full of members had gone away to college, in addition to members that had already left in 97and 98.By the end 1999-2000, Illnature Crew had downsized from 100 members to about 15 to 20 core members, which were the original ICU and Illnature members.
From about 2000-2005 Illnature Crew focused on music, college, jobs, and street hustling. However, during this time, they managed to drop a mixtape in 04 which sold Over 3,000 copies. In addition to their mixtape success, Illnatures Prolyfic, aka Pro, was signed to Atlantic recording artist Lupe Fiascos 1st &15th Production Company. Pro presently has three tracks included on Fiascos album Food & Liquor.
Today, Illnature is all back together again and is signed to I.N. Records and is prepared to take the industry by storm.
