King Iso’s iLLdren is an autobiographical journey around the challenges of mental health

iLLdren album art // courtesy King Iso, artwork by Rob Prior

Omaha-based rapper King Iso, who’s worked with Tech N9ne and is signed to his KC-based record label Strange Music, just dropped his latest album Oct. 27. iLLdren was entirely produced or co-produced by him and is his most personal endeavor so far.

“It just feels like I let the world read my journal,” Iso says of the album.

Last year, Iso reached a breaking point with his mental health and alcohol and drug use, and he turned himself into a psychiatric facility to get the help he needed. After admitting himself and getting sober, many repressed memories started to come back to him and the group therapy sessions helped him reflect on himself and his life since his childhood.

“When you clear your spirit out and you clear your energy, you don’t really have anything mixed in. Like, your daily uplift is just you just accepting the world as it is,” says Iso.

The album name is meant to bring awareness to kids’ mental health issues, a purpose that came to mind when Iso thought of all the kids he’s seen in mental health facilities over the years and how he related to that, as he struggled with feeling different from his peers and being labeled from a young age. 

“I just started to piece together this idea,” said Iso. “I know so many kids, from my upbringing, and from my own experiences, even dealing with my own kids, that society has always just kind of, like, labeled people and written certain people off that were different if you weren’t ‘normal.’”

It’s also inspired by Iso’s son, who was diagnosed with autism at 3. One of the singles on the album, “Way You Are,” is about him being treated differently and how Iso can relate to that—and is one of the tracks that Iso is most proud of.

“He’s just a dope kid, and I wanted to celebrate him and any kid that was like him, or any, you know, young teen, adult, or older human being who has dealt with the same thing he’s dealing with since a child,” Iso says.

iLLdren tells the story of Iso’s life while relating it to others who have gone through similar things. The 20-track album is broken into three sections, the names of which can be heard spoken at the end of a song within those chapters: Baby Blues, Teen Trauma, and Adult Adversity. 

This story, told through Iso’s rhythmic vocals that are both impressively quick and capable of slowing down for the choruses, is set to a background of a variety of beats and tempos and incorporates piano, guitar, and other string instruments that both mixes things up between songs and flows together to stay true to Iso’s unique sound—and serves as a perfect backdrop to Iso’s poignant lyrics.

It opens with “Welcome to iLLdren,” a short intro track where Iso speaks about one of his suicide attempts, and then goes into the first song, “Feel,” which features Matt Phoenix and Tech N9ne. A slower song that incorporates guitar in the melody, it’s about quitting drugs and alcohol and feeling “like a kid again,” making it an impeccable start to the album by embodying two of its main themes.

The next several tracks tell the story of Iso’s childhood, from growing up with a single mom and an absent father to trying drugs at a young age. In the song, “iLLdren,” Iso blends a haunting piano melody with a heavier bass, and speaks to those who have been labeled as different from their peers since they were young.

The second part of the album includes the single, “Young,” which is about Iso’s continued drug use and mental health issues, which led to him self-harming, skipping school, and nearly killing himself. This track is followed up by “Teen Suicide,” a song that calls awareness to suicide being the leading cause of death among teenagers, and then goes into the guitar-driven “Nightmare,” the title referring to Iso’s mental health struggles, in which he reassures himself, “One day I’ll wake from this nightmare.”

As the album gets into the third section, Iso raps about heartbreak and his kids and how they motivate him to be better and keep going. In the last few songs of the album, he talks about his family again, honoring his stepdad with “Step Daddy” and closing out the album with “Dear Mama” to honor his mother and all that she’s done for him and stood by him throughout his trials and tribulations.

A passionate work of art from start to finish, iLLdren is one of those albums you have to sit down with and really pay attention to the lyrics. The beats stand on their own, but you’re missing out on the full experience by far if you’re playing it as background noise. Though the album tackles lots of heavy topics, you’re left with a hopeful feeling by the end—which is what Iso wishes for.

“I just want everybody to know that you’re not your childhood trauma,” says Iso. “We’ve all went through horrific things and our own version, you know what I mean? Nobody’s pain is greater or lesser than the others—it all affects the same. And you’re not defined by that. You’re strong. You’re resilient, and you can keep going.”

iLLdren is now streaming on Spotify and Apple Music and the CD is available for purchase here.