Premiere • IKON (Ft. E-Will): "Wanted"
Local producer IKON is not a new face around the Chicago music community. He's curated backdrops for many of your favorites including Noname, Saba, L.A. Van Gogh and others. While he's proven himself to be proficient playing a support role in the hip hop space, IKON's personal taste in music has expanded his influences beyond any one particular genre.
This past week I had the pleasure of linking up with IKON at Private Stock studios, his north side home base. During our time together we listened to his new project Auragami, IKON's first solo release in a couple of years and his first moving in this new direction musically. Not one song sounds like the other. The EP is less cohesive and more experimental and demonstrative of IKON's range as an artist.
You'll be able to hear Auragami for yourself in its entirety July 28th, but to kick things off, IKON has given These Days his first single "Wanted" featuring E-Will to premiere on his behalf. Take a listen to "Wanted" above and keep scrolling for a short Q&A with the artist about his new material below.
How did the name IKON come about?
The name "IKON" came from one of my homies when we were younger at the time I was engineering, producing, and recording people at my house and he was like "Bro you do it all! Young icon over here!" so after that I kinda just ran with it and dropped the young part. Plus my real name is Ivan so I guess they're similar lol!
You're a pretty public representative of Private Stock, how did you link with those guys?
Yes I am. Those guys are my brothers and we have been doing music together before we had the studio that we are at now before even my first project back in 2015. I've been linked with these guys now going on 5 years so its more than just a representation at this point it's a family thing.
Your particular sound isn't very common in the scene you've been a part of. How did you end up working in this genre?
This is true and and I want to be one of the people that changes that mindset here in the community. I've been in this genre for a while and been making this type of music for years now but was in a scene that didn't except that so I decided to go a different route to cater the scenes taste, but then realized that I was doing myself a disservice by not doing the music that I love to do. So now I'm here with this song and project that is about to release that I'm very happy with.
