ill-esha began her music career singing and playing instruments in bands before crossing over into the electronic world as an mc / vocalist in 1997. she performed all over north america with house, techno and drum n bass dj’s before taking up spinning in 1999. she developed her now trademark style of singing, mc’ing and spinning simultaneously. she plays all styles of drum n bass / jungle, as well as oldskool uk breakbeat hardcore, 2 step, classic hip hop,and downtempo,and has performed with names like andy c, dara, ak 1200, dieselboy, db, usual suspects, dazee, flight, mickey finn, bill riley, slip & slide, illfingaz, marcus, empress, odi, jo-s, datcyde and sifu. she wrote and sang vocals for new york producer datcyde's "social skillz", featured on the breakbeat science "summer solstice ep". in 2001, she toured canada with east coast dj’s curtainz and bobby skillz, and attended the winter music conference (performing a much-lauded set on the womb tv) before beginning school for audio engineering. in 2002, she appeared on a cbc television show spinning original beats and composing and performing live original background music, spun on mtv canada's video countdown, and appeared in a ctv documentary also featuring shirley manson, bif naked and kittie.