Music

Phillip Morris: Kooky, Cool, and Conscious

Click here for - Mr. Morris" music video

Within Chicago’s underground hip hop scene, Phillip Morris is a rising star.

His music is a masterful blend of different and, sometimes, conflicting influences and elements. It’s weird, but what makes it difficult to define Phillip Morris is the very thing that makes him unique.

Phillip Morris gets lyrical inspiration from the movie, The Matrix, and loves reading sci-fi. So, it was hard to argue with him when he told me over coffee the other day: “I am a nerd at heart.”

But then, he is also a lyrical genius. He schools you and makes you laugh at the same time with a natural and powerful flow that showcases urban poetry at its finest.

As a rebel rapper, Phillip Morris makes music with heavy political undertone. Electrifying stage performance is one of his many creative outlets for anger towards corporate and government propaganda.

“I get very angry when I’m on stage,” he explains, “I have a large vein that’s bulging out of my neck…I’m pouring, dripping with sweat.”

Politics aside, Phillip Morris loves to make his fans happy. For him, musicianship is all about “walking the fine line between expressing yourself as well as you can as an artist and making it something people actually want to sit and listen to.”

“[Socially conscious music] has to have some level of sonic appeal and humor to stand out in some way,” he insists.

Sonically, Phillip Morris works with everything from crunk to classical. He is currently producing an album with Tha Truth Tellar, a French producer who is known for his work with crunk. Phillip Morris performs with cellist and violinist Lilliana Zofia and Hanna Rae while staying true to his Hip Hop roots by fusing spoken words, jazz, funk and blues together.

“I don’t really like genres and classification just because I don’t,” he protests when I tried slapping on him the label of conscious rapper.

Now I know why. Phillip Morris is the nerd who seduces you with lyrics that are silly but ridiculously smart while being political. He draws on psychology, the Matrix, and family life for ideas on lyrics. He does crunk but still has his hands on classical joints. He pays homage to Mos Def but still gives props to Li’l Wayne.

He is kooky, cool, and conscious all rolled up into one. Phillip Morris is the rapper’s rapper.