Columbus rapper Illogic prepares to turn back the clock

Illogic was in his early 20s when he tag teamed with producer Blueprint to record Celestial Clockwork, from 2004, and revisiting the seminal record two decades later has necessitated reconciling with who he was as a younger man, and in particular the mental struggles that were then driving him to create.

“The reason Celestial Clockwork is so dark is because I was depressed at the time I was writing it,” said the rapper, who will revisit the album alongside a full band for the first time in concert at Natalie’s Grandview on Saturday, Oct. 12. “There aren’t a lot of bright spots on this record. A lot of the stories are stories of loss, stories of being deceived, stories of being disappointed, stories of being double crossed. … For a long time, there were certain songs that I couldn’t listen to without crying, because I hadn’t yet been delivered from those things, those feelings. And now I can listen with a smile on my face, because I understand where I was, and I know now that we’re always a work in progress.”

Illogic, born Jawhar Glass 44 years ago, traced the roots of this earlier depression to a number of sources, from growing up on the East Side of Columbus absent his biological father to the grade school years he was bullied and teased. Entering into initial recording sessions for Celestial Clockwork, the rapper had not yet begun the work of addressing these early wounds – something he has done in therapy in the years since. Rather than obscuring these accumulated hurts in the recording, however, Illogic leaned into them, determined to present a fuller, more complex picture of the artist as a young man rather than projecting as though he were somehow bulletproof. 

“I wanted to be open and vulnerable and not make it appear as if I somehow had it all together,” Illogic said. “It was like, ‘I know that you’re in pain, but I’m in pain too.’ Even though I might be on that stage, and even though you might buy my CD, I still go through pain, I still go through loss, I still go through all of these things. And I felt like that [realization] was very important to my progress in life, and emotionally as a man and a human being.”

As a result, the songs populating the album are deeply personal, its stories almost wholly culled from the musician’s day-to-day existence. When Illogic raps about catching a former girlfriend cheating on “Lesson in Love,” it’s because he experienced this firsthand. “Stand,” a lyrical sparring match with Minneapolis rapper Slug, unpacks a toxic back and forth between father and child, with Illogic unleashing on his absentee dad in a way he couldn’t then, owing to the elder’s incarceration (the two have since reconciled). Then there’s “First Trimester,” a wrenching abortion tale delivered from the perspective of the unborn child, and a song on which Illogic displays measures of grace and wisdom that far exceeded his then-tender years.

“He thinks, ‘Here I sit, embracing a child with child/That’s probably more scared of this than I am,’” Illogic raps on the track. “It’s too late to question if I’m ready for the responsibility/Cause I knew the consequences of lust/But I took part willingly.”

As the track unfolds, the musician grapples with his own anger, frustration and sense of guilt while also leaving ample space for those difficulties experienced by his former girlfriend, acknowledging the family and religious pressures placed upon her, granting necessary weight to the life-altering challenges that come with teenage motherhood, and ultimately accepting her full agency over the decision.

Illogic credits the maturity on display throughout the album in part to having grown up “an old soul.” Witness, for instance, the moment on the song “Birthright” when the rapper moans about “being tired of all them kids.” 

“And I was 18, 19 years old saying that,” Illogic said, and laughed. “But I was always a lot more perceptive than most of my peers. And most of the people I hung out with were older than me. … Aesop [Rock], Slug, even Przm, they were all older than me. That’s one of the reasons why Eyedea and I were so close, because we were the young ones. Me, Eyedea and Abilities were the kids of the crew, but we had the respect of our peers, and we handled ourselves with grace enough to be in the vicinity of those people.”

The idea of revisiting Celestial Clockworks 20 years later is one that comes naturally to Illogic, who describes himself as an archivist by nature. He still has the notebooks containing all of his rhymes, and at the end of each year he sets aside time to listen through his entire discography, flipping through spiral-bound pages of handwritten lyrics as the albums race him forward through the decades. 

This familiarity has aided the emcee as he’s reworked Celestial Clockwork for the stage alongside his band the Smokin’ Section, though certain songs still present a challenge, in particular hidden track “Verbage,” a breathless, five-minute tongue-twister that sounds like the work of a man born with a double-jointed larynx. “When we first started, I wasn’t going to do that one, and then Levi [Brown], the band leader, he was like, ‘Are we going to do the hidden track? We gotta do an encore, you know,’” Illogic said. “It took me a couple of days to get it, because the second verse of that song is like three minutes long. It’s really serious. But it’s the last song, too, so that helps. … Really just figuring out how to pace myself throughout has been the challenge.”

Looking back, Illogic said he knew almost as soon as sessions for Celestial Clockwork began that he and Blueprint were onto something unique, when the producer took the vocals that he laid down for “Verbage” – the first song tracked for the album – and set them upon a bedrock of celestial flute. 

“And I think that just gave us an idea of where we could go,” the rapper said. “From that point on, we knew we were in unchartered territory, because there was nothing at the time that sounded like it musically. … But even then, I don’t think Blueprint and I knew what it would become, and that it would be worth celebrating 20 years later. But we knew we had something special.”