Color Free

Two mics, a beat, and a creative mind...that's all Color Free has ever needed to make music. “Back in the day, that’s all most hip-hop artists had,” says lead emcee Illistrate. “As a group, we’ve always understood and appreciated that about hip-hop, and we try to incorporate that mentality into our music whenever we can.”

Rounding out the hip-hop collective are Sean Kilpatrick/Illistrate, Junior Rodriguez/Joonz, and Trevor Field/Sneaky Pete. Illistrate takes the mic full time as lead emcee, while Joonz splits his duties between producing and rapping, and Sneaky Pete lives in the studio as the group’s dedicated production wiz.

The group takes a lot of influence from such hip-hop greats as A Tribe Called Quest, The Roots and Slum Village. As producers, Joonz and Sneaky Pete have long been fans of underground legends J-Dilla, Madlib, and Pete Rock, as well as mainstream super-producers like Dr. Dre, Timbaland and Kanye West.

When asked about coming up with the group’s name, Joonz says “We each come from different ethnic backgrounds and I’m sure people will draw obvious conclusions from that, but the name was honestly meant to be much more abstract. We like leaving things open to interpretation, and ‘Color Free’ is a perfect example of that.” Sneaky Pete says, “When we were coming up with names and that was thrown out there, it really piqued our interest and kinda stuck. We love how it has different meanings on many levels, even if some of those meanings contradict each other sometimes.”

Illistrate continues, “[the music] is more about life than anything...At the end of the day, it’s really all about being able to connect and make people feel good.” With a self-produced debut album already completed, Color Free is poised to make a big impact bringing their unique hip-hop style to the world. As Sneaky Pete simply puts it, “Lyrics come from the heart and the beat comes from the soul. That's hip-hop. That's Color Free.”