In Depth - Skyzoo

Skyzoo has been releasing consistently quality music ever since he dropped his Cloud 9: The 3 Day High debut album in 2009. Following the release of his most recent project All The Brilliant Things, we caught up with Skyzoo to talk about his prolific output over the last couple of years,  the importance of celebrating fatherhood, the gentrification of his Brooklyn neighbourhood, the influence of the Notorious B.I.G and much more.

You’ve not long released your latest project All The Brilliant Things. How did the creation of the album go?                     

Oh, man, coming together with it was crazy. It was dope, you know, I just had this idea of making this album that represented my neighbourhood and represented what our culture was about. Talking about how some of those things are being taken away from us, that was the driving force behind it. I remember just walking through my neighbourhood and just feeling all these changes, not just seeing them, but feeling them and wanting to do something about it and that was how this record was born.   

How do you feel that things have changed? Is it that sort of total gentrification or is it still the neighborhood you remember?

It’s all about gentrification and cultural appropriation; as far as what I'm remembering in the sense of the way my neighbourhood was versus the way it is now and just me noticing what's happenin. I just wanted to do something that spoke the story and made sense of it all and just trying to figure this thing out.

The praise of the album has been universally positive. People have said its their album of the year so far already. Does that make you feel humble and how gratifying is that praise? 

It's wonderful, man. You know, because when you create, that's what you want, you create because you want it to impact people. You want it to touch people and you want people to understand it and appreciate it. I don't think anyone goes out and makes music and doesn't care if they get those looks or not. When I made the record, I wasn't aiming for that, but I knew what I was doing. I knew what I was writing. I knew what I was creating and it's an honour and a blessing. I'm super happy that people are receiving it the way they are. It's been a crazy ride and I love it.

The beats selection on the album is impeccable again. Was it a difficult task selecting the beats that fit so well with your lyrics? 

I always pride myself in picking really, really great beats. I always promise myself I’m picking the right beats. The beat’s got to tell a story because I'm coming to tell a story. I don't just rhyme, rhyme, rhyme, I tell stories in my music so the beats and the production behind me has to accentuate that. If I'm saying I want to make a record about this, I'm looking for a beat that feels like, that sounds like that, that gives me that emotion so before I even say one word. When people press play and they hear the beat first, they're already in that zone. Then when I come in with my story, it just adds and it makes sense. Me and the beat compliment one another. 

You mentioned earlier about the gentrification. How do you feel that your neighbourhood has changed over the years and can you see it heading further into gentrification? 

Oh, I don't think it's going to stop at all, because it's big money. Gentrification is based on money and proximity and it's big money. I don't think it's gonna stop at all, man. Once you get a taste of something and it tastes good, whether it's a drug, whether it's a food, whether it’s a pretty lady, whatever; once you get a taste, that's it. So they coming man, the neighbourhood is changing. It's changed and it's going to continue to change, man. For me, I'm just trying to make sense of it all and I think more than that too, I'm trying to teach people what it's like, as far as, this is what's going on. I know you may not understand it, but here's a way to understand it, to all my people who still live in the neighbourhood and are still living through this. Here's a way to understand it. 

You talk about Biggie Smalls in the song St. James Liquor. How much of an icon was he growing up where you did in Brooklyn? 

BIG was everything. You know, for me, it was such an honour and a blessing to live a block away from him and not even really know it until he blew up because the thing about it was before he blew, we were just the kids on the corner running around and he was on the corner shooting dice, or rolling a blunt or chilling and hanging out or getting Chinese food or whatever. He was just one of the OGs on the block, the big guys on the block, him and Junior MAFIA and all those guys. Then one day he's on the radio, then you see video cameras in the neighbourhood shooting the Juicy video. Then you see video cameras in the neighbourhood, shooting an interview for Yo MTV Raps or Rap City and you're like, whoa, this is crazy. Mind you, we were little kids, we were 11, 12 years old, we were kids, but for me, I started rapping when I was 9 so when I saw that, I knew it was a reality because I'm like, yo, this guy's from up the block. He's from a block away. I could walk to his house in less than a minute. You know what I mean? And this is happening for him. It can happen for all of us and that was more than enough motivation for me to continue to push the pen, 

Did you ever get meet him and kick it with him? Obviously you saw him a lot. 

I never got to meet him and build with him in that aspect but we used to be around him all the time, just as little kids, but you got to think, I was like 12 and he was like 22 so there's not too many 22 year olds hanging out with 12 year olds. We were just the little kids that was being bad and running around the neighbourhood. He he was looking at us like, oh, look at these little bad ass kids, that was us. That was me and my friends and we would just see them all the time. We sit on the steps eating a hero and you see Lil Kim walk by or Lil Cease, they were just was the neighbourhood OGs and  then all of a sudden they were all over the TV and the radio. 

What was your upbringing in Brooklyn in terms of hip hop. Obviously it was all around where you were, but where did you first hear it and what’s the story with when you first started rapping? 

Like you said, it was all around. You couldn't get away from it, you couldn't stop it and you didn't want to stop it. You open the window and you hear hip hop, in the staircase everybody's blasting hip hop. I had young parents, so they would bump NWA and Kid N Play and BDP and Big Daddy Kane and all that stuff while I'm driving to school. They’d be dropping me off at school and I'm hearing Public Enemy and Bell Biv Devoe so I was surrounded by hip hop. I started rhyming when I was 9 with Age Ain’t Nothin But A # by Chi Ali, that was the record that made me want to rap. When I heard the record and saw the video. That was what made me want to rap. 

Who have you been your biggest inspirations as a lyricist? 

Oh man. Biggie, Jay Z, Nas. You know, I call it like the Holy Trinity. The Genius for sure, the GZA. Raekwon, Ghostface, Andre 3000, Scarface. Later on, it became Black Star, Black Thought, all those types of guys. Just anybody who was lyrical, my whole thing was you had to be saying something and you had to be very witty and crazy. Even as a kid, I was 10, 11 years old and some of those guys who were around when I was that young, those were the guys. I was like, yo, you heard that, you heard that. It made me want to write stuff to make people react the same way.

Do you think you've achieved that? I think you definitely have! 

Yeah. Thank you man, those are the guys I grew up on and I just wanted to continue that lineage and carry the baton, they passed me that baton and I wanted it carry it and keep going. 

Going back to your music. You released the Milestones album a year ago. How was the experience of making that album and how was it received so far?

It was amazing, you know, it was something I wanted to do personally, and I'm proud of it because it's an album that, you look at Christmas albums, holiday stuff, you know, the songs for Mothers Day, all these different things. Now we have music for Fathers Day and I'm super proud of it and I don't know any other rappers who made music for Fathers Day. I'm very proud of the fact that I was able to pull that off and give fatherhood something within hip hop that you can play for a hundred years, you know, a hundred years from now, when it’s Fathers Day, you can play Milestones and you can be a hip hop dad, a hip hop guy who loves hip hop 100% and you’re a dad and you got a family, here's a soundtrack for you on this day.

It’s brilliant. I'm a father myself. I've got a three year old daughter so I found the album very powerful when I heard it and it was great to celebrate fatherhood that way.

Thank you, man. Yeah, that's what it's all about, man. I just felt like when I made the record, I felt like there wasn't enough representation of positive fatherhood in hip hop. You know, you hear a lot of fathers records about my dad wasn't here. My dad was no good. I didn't have a dad. You hear all those things in hip hop. There's certain records that made a lot of positive noise in hip hop. Like Just The Two Of Us by Will Smith, Daughters by Nas, my man Termanology does a ton of good stuff for fatherhood with with his Good Dad Gang but outside of all that, man, a lot of the records about fatherhood are about how the dads are deadbeats and they need to do better. I just wanted to make that people felt like, yeah, I'm a hip hop guy and I'm a great dad and here's my story too. Here's something that celebrates me and represents me. It was great. People loved it. It hit home. Like you said, you adapted to it and you related to it. That what the music's about. 

You also released the Bluest Note EP last year, too. How was it doing that project with Dumbo Station? 

That was great. That was a blast because I wanted to do something, as far as with a jazz band, like a whole project for a long time and when I was able to pull that off, I went to Italy and I did the whole thing in about six days. I was up there about a week and we did the whole thing in five or six days, something like that. It was great, man, you know, cause I'm such a jazz head. I always wanted to do something with a jazz band and the fact that I was able to pull that off, it's part of my bucket list. You know, there's certain things on your bucket list you want to check off and one of them was doing a whole project with a band, whether it was an album or an EP, I wanted to do kind of a Roots thing where it was a band on every record, so it was great.

Is that something you'd do again, work with a band? 

Oh, a hundred percent I would love to do it again. I don't know if it's in the cards, maybe, but I personally would love to do it again so you never know.

Did you get a chance to perform any live shows with any of that material before the world went crazy? 

Man, the last show I did before COVID was December, 2019, but then last week,  I did a show for the release of my album in New York and that was dope. It was the first time touching a stage in a year and a half and it was really dope, man. It just felt good to be back at home on the stage. You know, the stage is home and it felt really good to be back home with people.

Have you got more dates lined up or is it just sort of a wait and see?

Yeah, I got some more lined up, some stuff here in the States, in LA and Florida and New York again, and a couple of other things over the summer, I really got to get back overseas man, because I love, love, love being overseas. London is actually one of my favourite places in the world. Like I would move to London, I love London so I’m dying to get back over there, but you know, with everything going on, its  so difficult because you don't know where other people stand. Like I know where America is with things, but I don't know where the UK is with things or Europe or South Africa or Japan. I don't know where everybody else as as a country is with things.

It’s going to take a while over here for things to get back to even a small part of normality to be honest, with everything going on. 

See here, in the States everything is open. You know, once we got the vaccine, everything kind of started to go back to normal. So a lot of our stuff is wide open. You wear the mask, you get the sanitizer, you get the vaccine but a lot of stuff is back open, shows, movie theatres, you know, we're kind of back in business. 

Do you like to keep busy when it comes to making music?

Man, last year I dropped two projects. I did Milestones and The Bluest Note and this year I dropped All The Brilliant Things and I was working on those things kind of at the same time. Like I did The Bluest Note, I think it was June, 2019. I finished that in a week. Then I started All The Brilliant Things in August of 2019. Then I stopped because I started making Milestones around February, March of 2020. Then when I was done with that, I went back to All The Brilliant Things, you know what I mean? So it was just a lot of back and forth of all these ideas and concepts and creativity and there's different things that I was juggling within the past year and change of making these three projects. 

How was the experience of working with Pete Rock on the Retropolitan album and would you work together again? 

That was great, man. That was great. Shout out to my brother, Pete Rock, obviously he's a GOAT. He's one of the top three ever in hip hop. Yeah, that was great doing it in person, you know, no email, no files back and forth. We was in the studio everyday together. We did the album in 11 days, so we sat down and just rocked out and if you know me, I write everything on the spot. I don’t write it at home and bring it to the studio later. I don't write for months and months and then record it at one time. I do everything on the spot, so I wrote and recorded that whole thing over 11 days. 

Have you got plans for any new music that you're working on at the moment, I know you've just released the album, but have you got anything else coming up?

Nothing yet because it just came out so I'm just enjoying the process. I'm doing a lot of interviews and speaking with good folks like yourself. No new projects yet, you know, I don't know what I'm gonna do next. I got to figure it out. This album is really going crazy. Everyone is really loving it and supporting it and appreciating it and I appreciate them in response somI'm just letting it ride. I'm gonna let it ride and see how we go.

Finally, one last question. What have been some of the highlights of your career in hip hop so far?

Oh man. Being able to touch the people,  that's number one, being able to really touch the people and leave a legacy. When I go, people can say, yo man, he was one of the best. He was one of the greatest. He was one of the best ever. His catalogue is one of the best ever. To this date, I've never dropped a project that people haven't gone crazy over when it dropped. Every time I drop, people are like, yo, he did it again. He did it again and that's huge, that means a lot to me because we can't say that about a lot of our favourites, a lot of our favourites, some of the greatest ever we go. “Yeah, but he had that one that wasn't that good” and thank God, I haven't had that moment, and I don't plan on having that moment son that's been number one, just being able to connect with people and tap in. Also being able to provide for my family has been a highlight because I hadn't had a job in 15, 16 years, which is a blessing. Everything’s off of music, my cars, my house, my vacations, my savings, my son, my sneaker collection, everything is off of music and it's a dream because a lot of people are making music and they want to get to a point where they can say, Hey man, music is my full-time job and I do everything I need and want to do off of music so I'm blessed to say that.  Another highlight though, if we’re talking about specific ones, working with Spike Lee of course, being able to collaborate with some of my heroes like Jadakiss and Black Thought and Talib Kweli, touring the world, being able to tour the world. The fact that hip hop brought me back to Africa is amazing, multiple times, I've been to Africa like 10 times and the fact that I'm able to go back to the motherland and build and have a fan base out there and have people that love me, really genuinely love me, like if I was their family is amazing, so for me, those are the types of highlights that stand out. 

Words by Gavin Brown