Brooklyn lyrical powerhouse I$O Indies is a testament to the true gems that lie within the underground. Conchez Yout and DillMatic have been at the game for ten years and developed a pen game that can be appreciated. With tracks like “Time Heals” and “Bikini Bottom” they continue to pay homage to the underground but simultaneously create tracks completely worthy of mainstream play. This rap duo has been hot for a while, garnering over half a million streams last year on Spotify alone. They just released a fire two-piece set of word-play “Yin & Yang” and “Duece,” so I just had to catch I$O to talk about their journey and recent music.
Being from New York, has the underground culture influenced your styles as artists and what do you want to add to the culture with your music?
The underground influenced our versatile styles as a duo heavily some of the artists we considered as legends started from the underground & they paved the way for artists like us to follow pursuit so what we want to bring back to the culture is authenticity & being true to ourselves…
The versatility you all have between underground and mainstream music is amazing, how were you all able to learn the pattern of your listeners to determine what to release when?
We like to cater to both styles of rap. So one way we notice how to drop music was the change of the seasons we know that when summertime comes around people like to be turnt up riding around blasting music. We drop hits & when the sweater weather comes around, people like that feel-good mood music so we will drop a tape full of smooth boom-bap Lofi vibes but other than that it’s just based on the vibes we cook up. We just rather keep it consistent with the music.
Your music is true to the underground; how did you all develop your individual style and turn those styles into a cohesively dope duo?
Years of practice. We’ve been rapping for 10 years together as a duo we started in high school in 10th Grade in the back of our English class that solidified our foundation as best friends. Conchez started Making music in church with a few of his friends 09’ and Dill started by freestyling to beats from the lunchroom days at school. We brought our worlds together & stuck to our guns & sharpened iron with iron. Every year we would drop a project & think it was the one that would blow us up but as we got older, we valued our morals & independence as an artist which made us who we are today.
What was the first track you released together and what sparked the birth of your duo?
So in High School We used to call Ourselves Swagg & Splash before we became Isoindies in 2014 we started out rapping over instrumentals back in the mixtape era we would go on Hipstrumentals.com & download the most current beats that were hot back then & rap over so in our senior year of high school we were working on a mixtape called “A Journey to a Legacy” we dropped that & One of the best songs that people considered was a track called “Sex & Weed”. Talking about our most Earliest Sex Experiences & how great of a combination Sex & weed was which was a different level of HIGH lol females in high school went nuts over that record so we would say that’s the first memorable track we ever wrote.
How have you been affected by the pandemic and what are some of the things you’re doing to make up for the current inability to interact with your fans live?
The pandemic affected us in a way to just remember you never know how life can go and how things can pan out. Always prepare yourself in some way for what’s to come. As for our fans, we have music in the vault to keep dropping for them and we started using IG live to make up for not being live at the shows but we’ll be back soon enough trust.
You all have been busy with the release of your most recent single “Sounds Good,” but what is next for I$O?
Sounds good is doing really great and we’re proud of how it’s been received. Shoutout to Clix for using the song in his montage video for recently joining NRG for Fortnite gaming. What’s next for us is our project “Speak it into the Universe” with producer Bicks Boogie our homie from LA, dropping soon. We have new merch in the works and we’ll be organizing a tour for Next year God willing we can travel again as normal. We plan on staying consistent and keep improving ourselves as artists and a duo sharpening our pen.
Their crazy versatility and cohesiveness are a true representation of their relationship developed over a decade of growing and challenging each other. The dynamic duo’s ability to push the boundary has been displayed through their lyricism and creativity. I$O Indies are more than worth a listen, with countless tracks that will deliver a whole new vibe to your ears.
Personal Favorites to check out! : “Church” “Tropicana” and “Safehouse”
