1300 Drop Their First Album Under Universal Music Korea, With Grammy-Nominated NEZ on the Beat

Sydney-based Korean-Australian alternative hip-hop group 1300 released their self-titled debut album ILLSAMGONGGONG on the 16th, marking the group's first full-length release since joining Universal Music Korea. The 13-track record arrives with already favorable international press, including a write-up in British music outlet Clash declaring that "2026 will be their year" and that they have the debut album to prove it.

The album is built around a theme that reflects how the group actually operates: five members navigating life across continents, trying to hold a shared project together while each managing their own circumstances. In a statement, the group described the record as emerging from "a necessary period of silence" and framed it as both a question and an answer to whether the values they had built together could bear the weight of their individual lives pulling in different directions.

The feature list reads like a cross-section of Korean hip-hop's working tier. Giriboy, who previously appeared on the pre-release track "Headrock," returns on the album proper. Kim Ximya features on "wheres my money," while Changmo and DKAY appear on "100," a track the group describes as a callback to the energy of street cipher culture.

The production credit that stands out internationally is NEZ, a Grammy-nominated producer whose credits include albums by A$AP Rocky and Schoolboy Q. NEZ handled "WHISTLE," a track that draws on early-2000s hip-hop textures and reframes them through a contemporary production sensibility. His involvement points to the kind of cross-market credibility that Universal Music Korea has been positioning the group to build.

On the visual side, 1300 stayed true to an independent production approach even under a major label. The music video for the title track "Fever" was shot entirely on an iPhone, with member Nerdie handling both direction and editing. It is a detail worth noting: in an era when label partnerships often bring polished, externally produced visuals, the group held on to creative control in a fairly direct way.

Billboard previously covered the group's signing with Universal Music Korea, describing them as artists "reshaping the boundaries of Korean hip-hop," a framing that aligns with how the group itself has positioned the album as something that required moving between continents and creative cycles to arrive at.

1300 are scheduled to perform at the One Universe Festival at Paradise City in Incheon on the 26th.