ILLIJAH

ILLIJAH FORD   

MEDIA INFORMATION

 Elijah Ford better known by his stage, ILLiJah, is an
American R&B/Pop singer from Portland, Maine. He got his stage name from
his friends when he was 16 years old because of his ability to sing. His
friends claimed that he was so “ill” as in so good, almost unheard of, he ought
to change it, he later added “ILL” in front of his name and eliminated the “EL”
altogether to become, ILLiJah. He started singing at 9 years old.

He was inspired by Usher’s “My way” album. He knows many of
the songs on the album. Some of his favorite singers include Marvin Gay, Boys
II Men, Luther Vandross, Bobby Brown, and many other R&B legends. Although
many people applauded his talent, he was never fazed by it. he always wanted to
be an athletic star, a famous soccer player like, Ronaldo Luís Nazário de Lima
or a track star like Michael Johnson. ILLijah was born June 6, 1988 in
Washington, DC.

 He was later put up for adoption by his biological mother.
After a few months he was adopted by two couples from Maine. As a child, he
grew up in Westbrook, Maine until he was 11 years old, and then moved to
Brunswick, Maine until he graduated high school where he played soccer, and he
was also in the track team. After graduating high school, ILLiJah was not sure
what he wanted to do over the years, music had become the center piece of his
life and he was determined to pursue that hidden talent.

 He decided to move to Atlanta January 2009 to take the next
step into the music world, after all, Atlanta is known as one of the top market
for new upcoming R&B artist. ILLiJah found himself back in Maine by the end
of the year due to family crisis. His dad had a stroke, he was in the hospital
for almost a month, and then he was sent to rehab to recover. In meantime,
while his mother was coming from work, she fell and broke her leg. It was very
tough he had never seen both parents handicap. They have always been active.

 In 2010 iLLiJah decided to cover a song called “Hold On” by Gyptian
that featured Nikki Minaj he called the track “On My Way”, little did he know
this would be his break out song gaining him instant recognition. He then shot
a video for youtube and within days the song and video went viral gaining more
than one million views in its first week. The video has close to three million
views to date. He had found his niche so he decided to cover another song “Far
A Part”, that garnered more than two and a half million views on Youtube. With
these two covers in the market place, radio stations started to play “On My Way”,
that started to give iLLiJah his growing fan base.

 Due to the demand from On My Way which was gaining momentum
worldwide he started to go out and perform sold out crowds at several shows
locally he knew that his time was slowly coming. By end of 2012, iLLiJah had
thousands of fans all wanting more.

 iLLiJah then found himself back in the studio
in 2013, but this time he wanted to cover a pop song, so he could show his
versility by covering the multi-platinum record “Broken”, by Rascal Flatts,
within minutes of being posted to youtube, the video had received more than two
hundred thousand views.

 Growing up listening to Hip Hop iLLijah decided
to tip his hat in the arena and wrote, produced and performed the single
“Tatted Up”, that features Young Chrigga. Even though he is singing the hook he
is also rapping on the song. It didn’t get the views his other works received,
but it gave him the ability to be able to cross over into that field as well.

 By 2015 iLLiJah would join forces with a
childhood friend named Miles, and together they became Overtime, a duo group. The
first single and video “Have It All”, was a great production but it didn’t
bring the duo what they had expect. In June they released the second single and
video “Let Go”, is where you can see iLLiJah started going into his own person
as a R&B/Pop artist.

 Illijah would go into the studio and start
writing songs for his upcoming new album “This One’s For Me”, that features the
hit single “Waterfalls”, followed by “Forever My Lady,” and the re-release of
his 2014 hit “Tatted Up”. The new single “Waterfalls”, is set to be released May
2016.