iLLism: The South Minneapolis Duo Building a Creative Legacy 

Fancy Lanier Duncan grew up in a creative household in South Minneapolis. Her mother studied to become a music conductor, played instruments including the piano and trumpet, and wove art into daily life. That creativity spilled into Lanier Duncan early.

“I too expressed an interest in music very, very early on… at about 3 years old,” she said.

Lanier Duncan loved to perform for whoever would listen. When family gathered for Christmas, she would have them sit down while her mother played piano and she sang. In school she was always cutting paper, writing stories, making her own books, and pretending to be the art teacher.

Emmanuel Duncan was introduced to music and poetry by his late sister when he was a child. She taught him and their younger sister how to rhyme and put words together. He began writing music and poetry at age 10.

“Music has always been the first love, the first talent that was developed,” the Rondo native said. “It stuck with me ever since and that was the driving force for quite some time.”

Fancy and Emmanuel met in 2006 as employees at an AT&T call center. At the time, Emmanuel was pursuing music under his stage name “Envy.” One day he handed Fancy a flyer to one of his shows.

“I didn’t really know what to expect,” she said. “Back then, a flyer to a rap show was just kind of like, ‘Oh, great. You’re a rapper, huh?'”

But after attending the show, Fancy was impressed. In 2008, Emmanuel’s single “Ringtone” featuring Fedarro charted on Billboard. He continued rapping and collaborating with different artists. Meanwhile, Fancy was making mixtapes filled with music that was largely new to Emmanuel, who mostly listened to his own work.

“I would make mixtapes and he would actually go back to the studio and make his own songs to some of the beats, which I thought was pretty genius of him,” Fancy said.

The two married in 2009. Fancy began making her own music in 2010 as a solo artist, and the couple dropped their first joint album that same year, “He Say She Say.” Fancy then proposed they work together more permanently, an idea Emmanuel was initially hesitant about.

“As a solo artist, you kind of feel like you’re losing part of your identity when you’re transitioning into a group,” he said.

In 2015, they became a duo as iLLism.

“I felt like it was time because we had done a lot of collaborations and always had a good response,” Fancy said.

In hindsight, Emmanuel said, it was the smartest move they could have made. It opened doors and allowed their authenticity to shine as a married male-female duo creating music rooted in real life.

“We were creating more music that actually centered our real-life experiences, not club bangers, not the catchy single everybody can sing at the club.”

The duo was asked to perform at Super Bowl Live by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, finished as runner-up in Prince’s Battle of the Bands after his passing, performed at TEDxUMN at the University of Minnesota, and have taken the stage at South by Southwest and venues across the country.

“For us to be newly formed and get the ask to do that, and to make an impression on not only people in Prince’s camp but bands from outside the city, that was quite surprising given how little time we had under our belt.”

Expanding the creative scope

Music led the couple into videography, audio engineering, and community building. Emmanuel learned audio engineering through music and got into camera work shooting videos for iLLism and others who needed affordable options.

“We ain’t have $2,000 to pay for music videos, so we said we’ll just buy a camera and do it ourselves. We’ll learn it.”

That evolved into CRWN Media, Creatives Re-Writing Narratives, a business that tells stories through audio, video, photo, and graphic design.

Around 2021, iLLism traveled to Las Vegas to shoot a music video and visited a production studio with rooms designed for whatever a creative needed. Emmanuel was inspired. Back home, the two asked themselves: do we have anything like this?

“We couldn’t really come up with any that we at least felt connected to,” Fancy said.

A month or two after the trip, the duo drove past an empty building with a sign in the window. Emmanuel called, and a few weeks later they were inside intending to create a production studio for CRWN Media. What emerged instead was the Legacy Building.

“We started to think about what some of the needs were that we would like to have met as artists, not just the production stuff and a cool place to shoot music videos. Do we want to travel out to Eden Prairie to rehearse with our band? Nah, let’s have a rehearsal space here,” Fancy said.

The building now houses a gallery, gathering space, recording studio, and pop-up storefront. Fancy and Emmanuel describe it as a “modular creative hub” that adapts to the community’s needs on any given day. Friday nights might bring African drum and dance practices. Saturdays might feature plant bingo or community safety forums. Throughout the week it hums with band rehearsals and independent artists recording their latest projects.

“It really has become this community hub that holds so many different types of people, creatives, and organizations,” Fancy said.

A new festival and future goals

The Legacy Building opened in June 2022 with a weekend of events, a ribbon cutting and jam session, a kids’ book fair with local authors, a “Black to the Movies” screening, and a Juneteenth celebration at the Hook and Ladder Theater in South Minneapolis.

The following year, the building began receiving emails and calls about a second annual festival, one the couple had not planned to continue. This year marks the fifth installment of Soul of the Southside.

As the passion project grew from a zero-budget volunteer effort into a full festival with crews and staff, Fancy and Emmanuel learned to lean into their individual strengths. Fancy handles organizing, planning, and the fine details behind the scenes. Emmanuel is the tech-savvy, outgoing networker who initiates partnerships. Their dynamic is also anchored by a deep personal care for one another. Emmanuel constantly reminds Fancy to rest, eat, and step back when needed. The two learned to share their needs and accept feedback without getting defensive over time.

Looking ahead, Fancy is finishing a children’s book titled “The Super Special Spectacular Fort” and hopes to make Soul of the Southside a model replicable in communities beyond the Twin Cities. Emmanuel is focused on growing CRWN Media and, most importantly, he said, getting back to the music.

For more information on iLLism, visit www.illismmusic.com/. For the Legacy Building, visit www.thelegacybuilding.org/. For CRWN Media, visit www.crwnmedia.com/. For Soul of the Southside, which is coming up in June, visit www.soulofthesouthside.com/.

Damenica Ellis welcomes reader responses at dellis@spokesman-recorder.com.