By MARGAUX MASSEY, staff reporter
The fourth stop on Illest Uminati’s Illumination tour is in Ellensburg on May 18. The tour is to promote his first nationally distributed EP, and the first thing he has released under this name, Higgs Boson.
The 25-year-old Illest Uminati, formerly known as Young Jay, has been making music for a long time.
“I’ve been doing music since I was like 15,” Uminati said. “But I really got into it when I turned 18.” Uminati got his start in Ellensburg. The first studio he ever recorded at was in Ellensburg working with the guys from Respect my Region when he was only 16. Before his name change he had put out one CD, two DVD’s and a five mix tape series called the Northwest Kingdom Series.
He says this new EP is different than anything he has done before because it is being distributed on a wider scale.
“It’s pretty crazy, I thought I was doing a lot before,” Uminati said. “But doing it all this way is an eye opening experience, I feel like I can do anything now.”
His influences include E-40, Tech N9ne and Eminem, but says that as far as what musics he listens to, he has a wide variety of interests, including Nirvana and The Doors.
He describes his music as both a party and, oddly enough, an insane asylum.
“My mind is crazy, so I’ve got some crazy songs,” Illest Uminati said. “It’s just all over the place.” All of the lyrics come from his self-proclaimed crazy mind, but the instrumentals, he says, come from multiple people and “each project is different, it’s like a collective.”
Along with his crazy songs comes a crazy name, which he says came from wanting to do something against the grain. He is against the whole idea of the Illuminati themselves and changed the name just enough so people wouldn’t think he was with them.
“I’m ill and I needed a good last name to go with it,” Uminati said.
The show on Friday will include not only Illest Uminati, but also a local DJ, DJ 13onez. DJ 13onez has been a DJ for about 10 years but this is his first time working with Illest Uminati. The two grew up together but only recently reconnected.
“He knows that I’ve been doing stuff with Respect my Region,” DJ 13onez said. “He hit me up on Facebook and asked if I wanted two be his tour DJ, then he asked if I wanted to be his label’s DJ.”
DJ 13onez is accompanying Illest Uminati for the whole tour, along with LM Genius, Team Blue Drama and Chris B and Gondi, all as co-headliners.
For Chris B and Gondi, this is their first tour. They have travelled to places before and opened for other artists, but have never done a full tour. That is how they met Illest Uminati and how they were invited on this tour.
“We met him opening up for people and he had some shows we opened up for and he asked us if we wanted to do the tour with him,” Chris B and Gondi said. They hope that by going on tour with him they can promote hype for their album “The Antidote Vol. 2,” coming out at the end of July.
The show doesn’t end there however. Each show also features several local artists as well as the co-headliners. Ellensburg will be treated to Outrageous and Notes, Clifton Del Bane and Krown Boy.
The show is $5 at Prosody Events and a portion of the ticket sales go to Relay for Life.
“I’m always down to try to help everywhere I can,” Illest Uminati said.
