LiL iFFy doesn't Muggle up the Potter pantheon.
When LiL iFFy begins to perform it is as if some malcontent young wizard has conjured urban rap culture inside of Hogwarts. He's rhyming with references that only a hardcore Harry Potter fan or expatriate of the wizarding would know. And his delivery is every bit as foul-mouthed and swaggering as regular rappers. You can easily imagine iFFy being banished to Azkaban for language alone.
And, iFFy is finding an audience around the country.
While having lunch at Chandler's on Magnolia Avenue, the only evidence that longtime Knoxville rock artist Wil Wright is actually iFFy is the "Deathly Hallows" pendant hanging from his neck.
"I expend the same muscles writing these Harry Potter songs as I do my regular songs," says Wright. "I'm not sitting laughing into a notebook. The books are things I feel seriously about. I'm not making fun of the books at all. I'm not making fun of either thing I'm referencing. I really do like both. If there's a joke, I'm making fun of hip-hop extravagance. But it's not really a parody. It's like a Christopher Guest movie. It stays very close to its sources."
For more than a decade Wright has fronted the Knoxville-based band Senryu. The group has slowly gained an international following, and Wright has proved to be one of the most prolific artists in Knoxville.
LiL iFFy, though, was the product of Wright's writer's block earlier this summer.
"I thought I would do just one song and get the creativity for the other songs moving again," says Wright.
"I did 'Patron Us' (a play on the magic spell and the tequila) and it came out so fast. It was a completely different type of musical satisfaction. What was supposed to be one out-of-the-comfort-zone song became an obsession."
He partnered with local DJ/producer Tom Ato for the project.
"He's a bottomless pit of creativity — and it didn't hurt that he knows and loves the Harry Potter series," Wright says.Wright played 'Patron Us' for his buddy Alex Bayless, a longtime Potter devotee, and Bayless' enthusiasm fueled Wright to create more songs. He found that the books were an endless source for puns and double entendres.
When he decided he would perform the songs live, he enlisted Zac Fallon (who performs as Katie and the Bass Drums and is bassist for Senryu) as his on-stage hype man and called the trio Dude Source.
Wright took the act on the road in a series of house shows. Friends at the popular music blog TheMusicSlut.com were intense Potter fans and helped spread the word, which led to an invitation to perform at the College Music Journal festival in New York.
Of course there's more to rap than music. Wright dove into the entire rap persona, finding clothes and jewelry that helped him become lost in the wizard rap persona.
"The kind of hip-hop that inspires me to do this is raw, raw theater. Hip-hop relies so much on the charm of personality, charm and swagger. There's no swagger in my normal life."
Wright emphasizes it's not aimed at children who might have just picked up on the "Harry Potter" series. It's for longtime fans of Potter and/or rap.
"It's for adults and marketed for adults," he says.
While Wright is also working on material for a new Senryu album and planning Senryu shows, he's already working on a new LiL iFFy album.
"So far, people are willing to take it as far as I'm willing to take it," says Wright.
© 2011, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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Comments » 1
jusittnthcorner90 writes:
Lil Iffy i went to your show friday night, and had a great time. I had no idea what to expect from this wandcore thing, but i was pleasantly surprised to find myself in a group of people that loved to party yet still got all the subtle references. What you have created here draws just the right type of people and builds the kind of atmosphere that you can get lost in. Keep it going as long as it will go.
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