The seeds of Illumination's origin sprang from an idea lead singer Philip Bailey had of collaborating with new generation of soul artists for his next solo album. The idea of illumination is vibrant and positive. Earth Wind Fire collaborating with the new soul movement made sense because the thrust of their music is still about playing instruments and utilizing vintage sounds, only in today's setting.

The seeds of Illumination's origin sprang from an idea lead singer Philip Bailey had of collaborating with new generation of soul artists for his next solo album. The idea of illumination is vibrant and positive. Earth Wind Fire collaborating with the new soul movement made sense because the thrust of their music is still about playing instruments and utilizing vintage sounds, only in today's setting.

In the beginning, me and my bandmates just did stuff on our own - we had smoke bombs, we'd dress as crazy and as weird as we possibly could, just to give ourselves a different ambience. But when we started making money, of course, the ideas started getting bigger. We were big fans of Broadway; we were like, "Man, when you go see a Broadway show, you just get pulled right out of reality; you're into their world for a two-hour period. It would be nice if we could do that onstage with a music concert".