You might think you know UNAPOLOGETIC. How could a Memphis music fan not know the likes of Cameron Bethany, AWFM, and PreauXX — or producers like C Major, Kid Maestro, and IMAKEMADBEATS? And yet there’s always more simmering below the collective’s surface than what its public-facing (or face-masking) side reveals. For example, at 10 p.m. this Friday, August 30th, at Bar DKDC, some talent whose faces may seem new to UNAPOLOGETIC fans will top the bill. And yet, paradoxically, they’ve been involved in the organization’s background for years, part of what’s always “simmering below the surface” there.
Take Nubia Yasin, whose first appearance on an Unapologetic release was in 2019, contributing to the track “Eve & Delilah” on the collective’s showcase album, Stuntarious, Vol. 4. It’s telling that her contribution to that track was, as she notes, “the poem at the end,” a spoken word passage, for that has been what her most public work has been centered on ever since … until now.
Moreover, her writing has been unflinchingly political, from her poetry to her more overtly activist work, including a stint as “chief storyteller” for the Black arts nonprofit Tone and her 2020 TEDx talk on gentrification. As she told Memphis Magazine in 2021, “Because I’m a Black woman, all the intersections that I exist in don’t allow me to be apolitical.” And her response to politics, and much of the world, has always been through the written word, which “informs everything,” as she said in 2021. “I’m multidisciplinary for sure. I do visual art, I do installation work, I do film, but the writing portion informs all of it. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know how to read. And I’ve been writing since I had the motor skills to hold a pencil.”
And yet, ironically, her writing originally went hand in hand with her voice. “I was actually a songwriter before I was a poet,” she says now, “and I stepped away from singing because somewhere along the journey it just started feeling too audacious. Like, there’s something really bold about opening up and singing. So I stopped doing it when I was in my early teens, and pivoted more towards poetry because I felt more confident in that. It wasn’t until 2022 or 2023 when I worked as IMAKEMADBEATS’ assistant for a year, and I was just surrounded by music all day, every day, that my urge to do it just got bigger than my shame about not being perfect at it.”
Returning to music brought things full circle, in a sense. “When I was a kid, my first dream ever was to be a singer. I did choir, all those things. But I have a pretty unorthodox voice — it’s pretty deep for a woman vocalist. As I got older and deeper, I felt really, really insecure for a really long time about my singing. But over time I got prouder of how different I sound, and now I’m in a place where I’m really excited to share that with the world.”
Working with “MAD,” UNAPOLOGETIC’s founder and key producer, directly informed her return to singing, as the tracks that will be playing under her at Bar DKDC were collaboratively created by the two of them. The final product might surprise casual UNAPOLOGETIC fans, its reference points being more indie rock than hip hop. In truth, the label has always been eclectic, from Aaron James to Cameron Bethany, with many releases trading heavily on the poetry and wit of the lyrics. Yet Yasin follows her own star, her musings flowing over meandering melodies that might suggest The Smiths — if fronted by Nina Simone — or equally unpredictable destinations.
Speaking of long traditions at UNAPOLOGETIC, Eillo first showed up on my radar during my 2018 group interview at their old studio, when IMAKEMADBEATS quipped, “this young guy, 16 years old, he’s actually the son of Quinn McGowan, who is part of Iron Mic Coalition. He’s an intern here, and he’s amazingly talented.” By the following year, he was performing on the Stuntarious, Vol. 4 group project and was even name-checked in that album’s recurring comic book-like narration, where an arch villain decries, “And this child, Eillo, has continued to outwit you!”
Today, Eillo laughs at that moment and the talent who played the villain. “That was my dad on the vocal,” he chuckles. “He would be a super dope voice actor.”
Over five years later, Eillo is no longer the “child,” having proven himself on countless contributions to recording sessions. In 2021, he was listed, with MAD, as coproducer of “Depression and Redemption” on MAD Songs, Vol. 1. Later, the multi-instrumental parts he brought to Aaron James’ Nobody Really Makes Love Anymore were key elements of that album’s musicality, and his other flourishes, like the jazz piano outro to PreauXX’s “Regret” in 2022, could be breathtaking.
It all has flowed from Eillo’s fingers, who grew up in a creative, musical world. Not only is his father an especially savvy rapper; he drums and is a comic artist. His recently departed mother, Adrian Liggins, was a self-taught pianist and a well-respected soul singer under the stage name Mahogany. “She was an amazing singer songwriter,” Eillo says of her now, and credits much of his musicality to her support over the years.
This Friday, that musicality will be on full display as an attraction in its own right. “I want to do all the things that I love about music,” Eillo confides. “So I’m going to be doing some raps, doing some singing, some original songs, and doing some, just, playing — just playing and building a vibe. I’m a huge believer in having the music speak for itself. I’m not the best with words, like talking to people and stuff like that. But when it comes to music, that’s the stuff that I want to speak for me. I guess it’s the purest way I can express myself.”