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Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, IllNess has transgressed adversity. Just as the mythical creature was reborn from the flames, IllNess emerges strong from the ashes of war. She knows not only the wars fought in the streets in urban cities, but she has also desperately clung to life behind a gas mask as bombs blew up around her in the Gulf War in Saudi Arabia. Unlike urban hoods, IllNess could not leave. She remained trapped inside the walls of a Saudi compound with no hope for escape. After years of struggle, the airports opened and her family fled the war and moved to Orange County, California. Here, IllNess sought a new beginning, a rebirth. Compound walls were no place to call home. Entering Los Angeles in 1991, IllNess hoped to develop a home with a stable foundation. Instead, she found her family moving four times in two months creating unstable ground. In Saudi, she was an outcast and in Los Angeles she was not accepted by American culture. Loneliness has always haunted her. Those closest to her have consistently disappeared. Friends and family members were dying, close friends came in and out of her life and her family struggled to make it in America. IllNess yearned to transform the threats in her life into unbreakable bonds. Her biggest challenge lied in picking up the broken pieces in her life and finding a way to create a life that nothing could shatter. Throughout her struggles, IllNess kept a journal and breathed life into the pen and composition book she held dear. All throughout her school years she wrote poetry about the darkness that surrounded her. Instead of the bleak circumstances hardening her heart, she instead developed hardness toward the world that threatened her and searched for a way to open her heart to others and help prevent others from feeling her pain. One of her closest cousins in Egypt died and sent IllNess into a deep depression and she lost her focus. Roscoe, a dear friend from the Dogg Pound, and other close to her helped her to get through it and she starting writing her poetry again. Poetry turned into lyrics and lyrics into rapping. IllNess had a hunger for education as well as rap. Her emerging talents needed to be simultaneously developed. After graduating high school, she first entered junior college and then applied, was accepted, and then transferred to UC Berkeley. IllNess was determined to not only make music that would spread her message of hope and opportunity, but also to educate herself, raise up her family, and pursue law school and return the fruits of her labor to the people. IllNess may have her roots in Egypt, but she is ready for a worldwide revolution in thought and ways of life. She has faced class struggles and has witnessed unnecessary wars over oil, class, race, and institutionalized prejudice. Through her music, IllNess aims to change an acceptable world. Her musical influence includes Tupac Shakur, NWA, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Rakim, EPMD, Run DMC, John Coltrain, Dogg Pound, and Mariah Carey and many artists with West Coast styles. IllNess is quickly approaching as a force to be reckoned with. Internationally, her music will inspire prosperity and a life of justice no longer framed by class, but freed by knowledge. Writing Credit: Lynn Guest
