It’s crazy to think that hip hop is 50 years old. It’s global, ubiquitous. Including in Iowa. Ion Alexakis — though much younger than hip hop — has been active musically in Iowa City for years, working as a producer, singer and emcee. His day job as production supervisor at the Englert is a perfect extension of his artistic pursuits. He’s intimately involved in presenting all kinds of music, meeting the performers, making sure they’re heard properly in the Englert.
“All kinds of music” describes the tracks on Broken Glass. While hip hop is clearly the root of Ion’s music, his productions and collaborations are not the standard loopy boom bap of commercial hip hop.
Check out the combination of live and sequenced drumming on “We Go” and how Ion’s flow rides on top of the beat. “I spit mouthfuls that make you the clown of my townsfolk/I hit it deep, straight off the breath of my down stroke.” Samples of African singing weave through a leading bass line, keyboard and guitar. The back cover of the EP states that it “features noises from” an eclectic mix of Iowa City music mainstays: Blake Shaw, Ramin Roshandel and Tara McGovern, to name a few.
“Pilot” is a luminous instrumental, driven by electric piano and guitar. “May we never go silent, spinning this world as pilots.” Ion’s plaintive singing makes it a desperate poem.
“Riot Dog” is anchored in a compellingly cruddy drum loop by Brian Lewis Smith before being swallowed by a chorus of synths. Ion shows his skill on the mic with rhymes like. “Remedial yet contagious, you can find me on the front pages, ask your neighbors/Citywide radius framed around my patience, throw your hand in front of the gun and you can save us.”
“First Word Problems” is as influenced by both Radiohead and Mobb Deep. Distorted guitar and synth bass provide an anthemic ’90s rock feel, with hard-as-nails drums that combine hip hop backbeats with ’90s rock skeleton patterns. Ion won’t be the first guy mixing rock and hip hop, but the combo here is organic and hints as much at Prince as Pearl Jam.
On “Sirens,” Ion sings/raps over a downtempo minor groove that has a cinematic vibe not too far from Portishead. It’s an oddly disconnected love song, or lust song, but it seems like serious business when, “She’d open up my brain and start picking out them vegetables.”
In those 50 years of hip hop there have been countless examples of rappers, producers and even whole scenes that regard the words as paramount, and will bind them to the most functional, utilitarian beats. There’s a place for that, but also a place for Ion Alexakis, uniting words and music his own way. The words and rhythm are important, but the emotions are reinforced by the music, which transcends the term “beat.” Ion’s hip hop is live and kicking.
This article was originally published in Little Village’s January 2025 issue.