“I feel like people know I’m dope, people know I’m a lyricist, people know they are going to get top notch lyricism,” Skyzoo tells me on a breezy afternoon in early September. The air, much like his tone is calm and fluent. This isn’t a boastful claim for the Bedstuy rapper, but comes off more as a researched and understood statement such as who won the last World Series, or even the current temperature. Skyzoo also communicates an understanding of where that may classify his music, and who is believed to be the intended audience.
While Skyzoo grew up in “Ready To Die, that was our neighborhood,” his home was one of the few with both parents present, and with hopes of him getting a better education, they sent him to school in Manhattan thus providing Skyzoo with a second home as far as friendships, experiences, and outlets. Much like a traveler who picks up trinkets from places on his journey and brings them back home to show those that didn’t make the trip, it seems as though Skyzoo took the best of a his Manhattan project and presents it for those that haven’t been. “A lot of my music is for people who never stepped foot in a college or on a graduation stage,” Sky stresses. “A lot of my music is for them…it just requires listening and paying attention.”
Skyzoo’s debut album, The Salvation, will hit stores on September 29th, via indie label Duckdown records. It is a record grounded in duality that sees Skyzoo juggling opposites. And while the title may lead some to think that Skyzoo is placing a superhero moniker on himself, swooping in to save Hip Hop, Skyzoo is really out to save himself. “The album is not about saving Hip Hop or New York, the album is about me.”
We caught up with Skyzoo to learn more about the emcee who recently garnered an XL rating for the piece of work which he sees as “my Illmatic, my Reasonable Doubt.” And just as those albums weren’t cemented in first listens or first week sales alone, Skyzoo also hopes to present something that people understand more with each listen. “The Salvation isn’t a ‘one listen’ album, I made it like that. It’s an album that you love on the first listen, and you fall in love with by the third,” he told me via email after learning of his rating. And let me be the first to tell you that Skyzoo’s right…Now, read on and he’ll tell you why in the full interview below.
RubyHornet: Where’s your head at right now with the album coming out later this month? Are you kind of crossing days out on the calender?
Skyzoo: Definitely. I’m excited. This is what I wanted forever. Everything I’ve ever done, the mixtapes, EP’s and stuff I do with 9th Wonder, was for this. It was all to get to the debut album. And this is the debut, so I’m just really happy to get it out there for people to hear what I wanted to create and what I wanted to present to them.
RubyHornet: It’s interesting that you say that this is everything that you’ve always wanted. I’ve listen to the album a couple times through and it seems like there is a lot of that coming through the music and a lot of you asking yourself what it is you really want. A lot of tracks seem to focus on you questioning, do I want all that the music business has to offer.
Skyzoo: Well, with the album the whole theme is temptation. If you sum it up in one word, it is about temptation. I wanted to show the different sides of temptation and that’s why it’s called The Salvation because it’s pretty much, what saves you as a listener?…Going back to what you said, it’s questioning do I want this? or am I going to choose to do that? You have records like “For What It’s Worth” and “The Necessary Evils” and “Like A Marathon”. All of those records are about temptation and about the evils and things that are out there. When they are presented to you, do you chose to go with them or not? It’s not a preachy album. I didn’t wanna preach to anybody. I didn’t wanna tell anybody what’s right and what’s wrong. I just wanted to paint a picture and let people decide what’s right and what’s wrong.
RubyHornet: You also deal with contradictions in the titles like the “Beautiful Decay”, and songs like “My Interpretation” and as you just said “Necessary Evils”. When I first saw the title of Salvation, I thought it maybe you saying that ‘Hip Hop (or music) is my salvation. Are you making that statement? If music is your salvation what at as your biggest temptation?
Skyzoo: Music is definitely my salvation. That’s what brings it all full circle. The music is asking you, what does it for you?…You got a 9-5 and you’re presented with something more lucrative but you know what it is and you know where it could take you. So what makes you say ‘yes’ or ‘no’? If you say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ what’s the up and down of that? So, what is your salvation with it all?
RubyHornet: There is a line that you say ‘I write a rhyme, sometimes I don’t finish for days.’ That line is also on a Mos Def song called “Hip Hop”. On that song, Mos Def says, “‘Hip Hop will simply amaze you, pay you, do whatever you say do but black, it can’t save you.’ I was just wondering if you agree or disagree with him?
Skyzoo: Yea I totally agree with him. I borrowed the line from the Mos album being a Mos fan and definitely a fan of that album. I just felt like the line was dope, and it fit with what I was trying to convey in the opener. I definitely agree with what he was trying to say. And that’s why with the album title of Salvation, a lot of people thought ‘he’s saving Hip Hop,’ or ‘he’s saving New York,’ and it’s neither one of those. The album’s not about saving Hip Hop or about saving New York. I tell people all the time, ‘if Hip Hop was the same way it was back in ’95, where you know all of the dope s**t was really winning and people weren’t complaining, this album would still sound the same.’ And let’s say if New York was still running the game and we was on the radio every five minutes, this album would still be the exact same. The album is not about saving Hip Hop or New York, the album is about me.
RubyHornet: I read an interview that you did in ’07, around the time you did the 9th wonder project and the interview asked you about your proper debut. At that time you said that you were waiting for a major label deal to really start that project. This album is coming out on Duckdown, which is not a major label, but it is a major independent label with a history and such. At what point did your plan change and maybe you thought you didn’t need a major label? And why Duckdown at this point?
Skyzoo: We had offers from indies, we had offers from majors. We had a lot of people on the table. What helped me make my decision was a lot of majors wanted a lot of the creative control. That pretty much was the deal breaker. Everything was good with the money and all. At the end of the day this is the music business, but the creative control wasn’t there the way I wanted it to be. I didn’t want to be in a situation where I turned in songs every two weeks or every month and the label was putting my album together and the label was telling me who I can work with and who I couldn’t work with and telling me what the singles had to be and how to do it. I wanted to be a thousand percent hands on, and I knew going indie would give me that. I tried to go to the majors and they wouldn’t do it, and they all wanted me and they all wanted to control me, and I didn’t want that. I wanted to be able to set up my career the way I wanted to. This is my first one, my Illmatic my Reasonable Doubt. I want to set myself up to have a career like that, and I felt like I needed to be able to do this the way I wanted to on the first album in order to do that.
As far as Duckdown, they are a major indie. If you’re talking Hip Hop, they are easily the biggest indie there is. As far as just straight Hip Hop music there is no other indie with an impact or presence like them. I think they are the only record label, major or indie, that still does ads in magazines. You got Def Jams and Atlantic’s that don’t even do ads anymore. You got Duckdown where you might get one or two in every XXL…9th actually came through on the side and said he got a label deal, and I said ‘wow, that’s ironic because they are actually hollering at me right now for a situation,’ so it only made sense.
RubyHornet: Speaking of promo and ads, what I see a lot of as far as promo are cosigns or artists putting out videos with famous people saying how dope they are, but your viral videos take a much more different approach with the “Saving Our Grace” series. The first one, “The Doubt” spoke with someone who was in a dead end job. The second one, “The Faith” introduces someone who is looking for a job, but has strikes against them and also trouble finding a job…It seems like the titles and subjects are emotions or feelings or steps towards salvation or a certain point. Why did you decide to go this, route how do you see them complimenting what you are trying to say overall?
Skyzoo: I really wanted to introduce people to the album. I didn’t want to leak a bunch of records and just put a bunch of records out there just like everyone else is doing. I didn’t want to do the average videos…I didn’t want to throw a million records out there and do remixes to every record and just do what everyone else was doing. I just wanted to put people into the world of the album. I think the album is its own world. I came up with the idea. All of the marketing and everything you see, I came up with it 100 percent. I put everything together, I found the director and we put it all together. I knew what I wanted to be displayed as far as the video series and I purposely didn’t want to be in it. A lot of people in my camp said, ‘yo, you’re not going to be in any of them? You can be each character.’ My response was always, ‘no, I don’t want to do that because I don’t want people to watch it and get lost, like, wow that’s Skyzoo.’ I wanted people to watch it and see people they didn’t know…I want people to watch the video and not know who they’re looking at. I want them to see themselves. Every episode that’s coming out, it represents a phase in the album. You heard the album so you know when you see “The Doubt” that directly reflects “For What its Worth”. You see “The Faith” it reflects a little bit of “Beautiful Decay” but it really reflects “Bottom Line” as well…That record is about motivation. But at the end of the day, if that motivation isn’t focused the right way it can turn into you doing a bid. And that’s how they all tie in to each other.
RubyHornet: What role would you say that religion or spirituality play in your life, do you see a difference between the two?
Skyzoo: I’m definitely spiritual but I’m not under a certain denomination per say. But I get that a lot. People see the cover they see me standing in front of the church then they hear the intro with the gospel singing, so I’ve done interviews and the first thing is, ‘what religion are you?’ It’s not one of those albums. I pretty much wanted to use that the whole church theme because I wanted it to be where I felt like I had so much to say, but I didn’t know who to say it to. There’s a line on the opener where I say, ‘the hardest thing I ever had to do was to determine what I could and what I couldn’t tell to you.’ I felt like I had so much to say about the things that go on in my life, and in turn everyone else’s life who is listening, but I didn’t know what could and couldn’t be said. So the whole play on the beginning of the album is me walking into the church, but not knowing whether I can say all of this. That’s where the gospel singing starts and they’re standing in front of the church trying to get people to go in, then you hear the door close, then you hear me go in…I have so much to say, but didn’t know who to say it to. Even with the cover, I’m standing in front of the church with my book out ready to tell them all the things I’ve wrote over the years, but I’m afraid to go in because of what I’m saying. There’s definitely a difference between religion and spirituality. I think with religion it’s what denomination you are, what your practices are, and everything else. Every religion has its pros and cons, but to me spirituality is believing in a higher power and you living your life the way you feel is right, and the way you think that higher power wants you to live.
RubyHornet: One of your label mates is Kidz In the Hall. About year ago at this time I did a mixtape with Naledge, which was a collection of artists in his peer group and that he really liked. He gave me the song “Lyrically Inclined” back then, and that was on the mixtape. At the beginning of the song you said, I gotta keep hitting them with the best s**t. I just keep doing it until you understand it.’ How do you balance waiting for people to catch up and standing firm vs. changing when not enough people get it so you can rope in other listeners?
Skyzoo x Wale: “Lyrically Inclined”
[audio: http://rubyhornet.com/media/rh/music/skyzoo_wale_lyrically_inclined.mp3|width=180]Skyzoo: I think about that all the time. I know when I make music it’s lyric heavy, it’s conceptual, and it makes you to really listen to it. Not even on some conscious s**t, and you gotta be a straight ‘A’ student or a college student to get it. But you just got to listen, you gotta pay attention. A lot of my music is for people who never stepped foot in a college or on a graduation stage. A lot of my music is for them it just requires listening and paying attention. I think about that everyday, ‘should I change and go that way?’ It’s definitely not something that I want to do. It’s not something I’m trying to do. I know the music I’m trying to make. Sometimes people just don’t get some of the best stuff ever, it takes a while. If you look at Reasonable Doubt it got 4 mics in The Source. People look back on it now and it’s one of the top albums in any genre. You look back on it now and people just say ‘classic’. All of the great music that came out and got over loked a little bit when people thought they understood it, but really didn’t. That’s how I feel about my stuff. I feel like people know I’m dope, people know I’m a lyricist, people know they are going to get top notch lyricism. People are going to hear more than that. They’re going to hear honesty, reality, truth. It’s not a one listen album, it’s an album that the first listen you’re going to be like, ‘wow this is a dope album.’ By the 5th listen, you’re going to be like, ‘yo this isn’t even an album. This is something special.’ And I’m not saying that to be cocky. I just know what’s in it as far as what I’m talking about. It’s more so what’s in the album. You take a record like “The Shooter’s Soundtrack”, I know somebody’s going to hit me and want to write a paper about it because I’ve had records on Cloud 9 that people wrote papers about and got A’s for. I know a record like “Shooters Soundtrack” is waiting for someone to use in a classroom because it’s so deep on a sociological level. That’s what I mean when I say people are going to get later and say ‘this is something beyond what it was when I first heard it.’
RubyHornet: I wanted to go into a lyric that is probably one of my favorites on the album. It’s at the very end of the “Beautiful Decay” where you say, “I take the newest light bill and a pen to the basement, use the back of that light bill to write what I’m saying, and hope that it will keep your lights on when you’re playing it”. That’s conveys a want to inspire people. What inspired you and that statement.
Skyzoo: I got started emceeing back when I was 9. G. Ali made me really want to start doing it, G Ali from Native Tongues. I said this is what I want to do and I knew that was what I wanted to do when I grew up. I knew I wanted to take it serious from day one. And I didn’t want to be anything else. That was my inspiration as far as rhyming. But as what inspires me when I write, it’s just everything around me, everything that I’ve been through, and everything I go through. I’m from Brooklyn, so there isn’t too much I haven’t seen. But at the same time, I balanced that out with being the only kid on my entire block who had his father with him. So I was blessed in that sense. I lived in Bedstuy, right up the block from Big and Ready To Die, that was our neighborhood. But at the same time, my parents made sure I went to school in Manhattan because they wanted me to go to better schools. So I had that balance. I was always in the hood with the worst guys, but at the same time I went to school in a different neighborhood and it showed me a different perspective to life, so I had both sides. I’m inspired by all of that, everything around me, everything I grew up around.
As far as “Beautiful Decay”, the title alone threw a lot of people off. DJ Premier was like ‘yo, what does it mean? It’s a sick song, but what does it mean?’ I broke it down to him and he was like, ‘damn that’s sick.’ So the title is like: whatever people look at, like the worst of the worst, the people in my neighborhood and society looks at them like the scum of the earth. At the end of the day, we are all born with a clean slate and we were all born with beauty to us. Whatever happens around us, and whatever we come up around is what changes us into that decay. So at the end of the day, we all start from a beautiful place and we change into something. If you get to the very root, it doesn’t start with us. It starts with that something that was around us.
Skyzoo’s debut album, The Salvation, is in stores 9/29 via Duckdown Records.