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7/17/2006 What's up? I'm all right. I can't complain. I have a lot going on and I'm staying busy, busier than ever. What's up with this album you have with 9th? Basically we did an album together real quick. It was real spur-of-the-moment. We did twelve joints in three days. We just decided to bang it out. How did the project start? Every time I see 9th, he gives me a new beat-CD. I got all the joints in my crib, and each one has about fifteen joints on there. The whole JL (JUSTUS League) shows me so much love. I planned a trip to go to North Carolina and just do some joints. A few days before my flight left, I was listening to the radio and I was real bored. I just started going through his beat-CD's and did like eight or nine joints in New York in two days. I just did them to do them. When I came down, nobody had any idea I did anything. I gave him a CD to check out what I had done. The next day he called me. He said the CD was crazy and outrageous. He was telling me how much he loved it and wanted to know what I wanted to do with it. I said, "Let's do three more joints and put it out." He made three beats in front of me and we banged it out. A lot of albums, like Busta Rhymes' The Big Bang, took a long time. This didn't take that long. Is the quality there? Yeah. The quality is definitely there. It's a chemistry thing. When you work with somebody who's as talented as 9th, those beats bring the best out of you. Look at how many people download them and do joints to them. Those beats bring something out of you. I know how 9th works. He makes beats in five or ten minutes. I've watched him. He's an incredibly talented dude. It's a chemistry thing. I'm a fast worker. Everything I write is usually at the studio. I don't sit in the crib and write and find a beat for it later. I go to the studio, turn on the beat, and twenty minutes later I have a whole song. That's how I've always been as a writer. We're both talented and those beats are just so hard. Musically, it's just incredible. It's just a dope project. It's a dope project to have for the summer to hold you over. The people who have heard it have been losing their minds. This is just something I did to do and it's looking like it's going to be one of the biggest releases of the year. People are really bugging out and it's a great thing. All of a sudden Skyzoo has an album coming out. It's crazy. We just started promoting it. It all started when 9th leaked one of the songs on his MySpace page. We were still working when he did that. This was that day when he was making the beats for me. He leaked it on his MySpace and it had a thousand hits right away. I think it has 30,000 now. It was crazy. Once we saw that, we looked at each other and knew we might have something big on our hands. I'm lucky to have a friend who's so talented. 9th is my dude and he just throws me joints and that's how we work. Even though 9th's in North Carolina, he has that universal sound. That's the thing about it. Being in New York and going to different beat battles and having a name up here as someone who is coming up, I get a lot of beat-CD's from a lot of different people and I always listen to everything I get. You never know who's going to be next so I listen to everybody. A lot of those beats just aren't there. It's crazy that I have to go to North Carolina to get New York beats. That's what 9th and Khrysis do down there. It's crazy that I have to go down there, but I'll get it wherever I have to get it from. Murs was frustrated with how 9th works based on recording Murray's Revenge. Do you and 9th have similar problems? Nah. I read that interview and I like what Murs does with 9th. A lot of people asked me about that and asked me if that was true about 9th. I can't vouch for that because I work with 9th great. We knock the joint out, he feels it, he mixes it and puts the drops in. I don't have any problem with what he does with the music. He'll put a lot of drops in it. When 9th goes to mix it, he'll put drops all over the place. He'll chop the beat here and do a drop here. I was going crazy watching him like, "How did you do that?" I can't speak for anybody else's chemistry with him, but I can say when we work together, it comes out great. I dig what he does and he digs what I do. I work great with 9th. We've never had an argument. It's a good thing with him. I love working with 9th. I'd work with 9th any day of the week. Will people have a better idea of who Skyzoo is after hearing "I'm On It"? Yeah. I think the whole album will do that. If I did this in three days, imagine what I can do in three months. I stopped recording for this album after three days. I did other recording with Pooh, Chaundon, and Khrysis, but not for this album. I think people are going to be blown away that this was done in three days. People are going to question that, but 9th and I can vouch for that. Songs like "I'm On It" have a good vibe. "The Bodega" is grimier and describes what we go through on the corner. There's a lot of different vibes and it all goes well together on the album. What was your inspiration for "The Bodega"? My life. It's easier to write the truth than a lie. That goes for anything from books to screenplays. It's hard when you have to tell lies. I think I wrote that song in twenty minutes and did the hook off the top of my head. Most of the time that's who I do my hooks. That song is about standing out in front of the 2-4, that's the 24-hour spot in our neighborhood. It's about hanging out in the corner store with your peoples and then all of a sudden, it's mayhem. Brooklyn is no different from Queens or Harlem which is no different from Atlanta. That's what that song is about. What does "Way to Go" mean to you? That's another one of 9th's favorite songs. When that song was done, he had everybody listening to it. I don't write at home and then find a beat for it because it won't fit. I wrote to that one and the beat spoke to me. Whatever the beat tells me to do, I do it. The vocal sample says "You've got a long way to go." They've got a long way to go to get what we've got. That's all that's basically saying. I'm setting up my spot and letting people know I'm here and I'm doing what I do. They have a long way to go to catch up to where we're going. It's dope hip-hop. It's just dope beats, dope rhymes, dope flows and everything is meshing together. Where will this album do best at? I think it's going to do well everywhere, but I think it's definitely going to get a lot of love overseas and all throughout Cali. For some reason, I just get that feeling. I think the tri-state is going to eat it up. When 9th does albums with people, his beats are so hard but feel-good that they're universal. It's not like other producers where they only have a certain sound. 9th has down south joints and joints with Ness and they sound perfect. These are straight New York joints that can be universally-accepted. I think this is going to do real well in New York. I'm getting emails and fan mail all day, everywhere. I'm practically living on MySpace now because I'm responding to emails. People have heard the song everywhere and I'm just trying to keep up with the hype. Did you want any particular beats from 9th? Nah, I never said that to 9th. I would ask him for something hard or some street shit sometimes. He has so many different sounds with the beats, but they all have a 9th Wonder sound. They all sound similar and different to each other. You'll probably never even hear another "Threat" from him. Everybody asks him for that. I even asked him for that. You don't just do that over and over. You reinvent yourself. You'll probably never get another "Let It Go." It's just about reinventing yourself and I think that's what he does every time he gets on the beats. Where will this album be coming out on? It was going to be independent as far as me putting it out through my company Custom Made. The Hall of JUSTUS was going to get involved and help us, but now people are really hollering every day about the project. Every day, for the past week and a half, somebody has called asking about the project. There are so many indie labels on the come up and they want to do a one-off. We're just figuring it out. I'm really blessed. God really looked out on this one. I never expected for it to be this big. Everything is working out and I'm just glad I have 9th Wonder as a friend. It's just a good thing. Everything is meshing together. When is the album going to drop? We're looking at a July release. We were looking at June, but we're going to push it back a little bit. It's not as big of a push-back as if it were coming out on a major. It's only a couple weeks away. A lot of people thought it was coming out at the end of June but a lot of things happened to make the situation better and to help it. It's going to be available in more stores and outlets and hopefully there will be a tour to support it. It should be fine. As long as people hear the three joints I released and the song I'm about to release, everything should be fine. The push-back isn't that heavy. It shouldn't be too bad. You were one of the only artists to record a tribute to J.Dilla after he passed. What was your relationship like with Dilla? Dilla was an inspiration. He was somebody I looked up to since high school when I first heard him with Q-Tip, Janet Jackson, Slum Village…When he passed, it really crushed me. You know everything gets better with time. He was a producer and I never made a beat in my life. I'm a straight rapper, but his work ethic and drive was really an inspiration for me. I met Dilla back in 2004 at a Madvillian concert in New York. He was a surprise guest and I knew he was going to be there. I waited 'til four in the morning to meet him and I was floored when I finally did, like I had just met Jordan. Right away, we switched numbers and that blew me away. I still have his old cell number in my phone today. We switched numbers, kicked it, and got up a week later. We would just kick it on the phone about beats and he wanted to send me beats. It was a beautiful thing. When he passed, it hit really hard. Chaundon was the first person to call me. It was a hard blow, but everything works out for the best. What will you remember most about him? How cool he was. He was the coolest dude in the world. For somebody of his status and he's looked at the way he is and he's admired by so many people, he had the right to be a weird dude or a grimy dude, but he wasn't like that. He gave me his number and he was just a real cool, laid-back dude. His music speaks for itself. I did a tribute to Dilla called "Sky's Last Donut." That was for me. That was me thanking him for everything he did. It reached out all over the place on the internet and it ended up being in Spin Magazine as one of the most downloaded songs in the country. I didn't even know about that until a friend called me and told me. They even had my name spelled right. It was just me showing my love for him. I know 9th has a lot of love for Dilla too. He feels like when he makes beats, Dilla is watching him. We dedicated the project to him and to my cousin, who was a DJ, who passed as well. We did this to keep his name alive. This is good music, which is what he would want. What's the next move for Skyzoo? Right now it's all about Cloud 9. I'm working on the next mixtape which should drop in the fall, sometime in October or November. I already have a crazy lineup for that. Beat-wise, I have 9th Wonder, Khrysis, Illmind, Black Milk, he's incredible for those who don't know, and some others. Everything is working out. It's a good thing. The next tape is going to be crazy. I haven't even named it yet. I'm going to keep making music every day and fans hit me on the website saying thank you for what I'm doing. I just do what I do. I don't try to sound like Jay or Nas or anybody else. That's why the people mess with me, because they know I'm me and that's it. Just to clear things up, what's your official affiliation with the JUSTUS League? I'm not in the JUSTUS League and I'm not in the Hall of JUSTUS. I have Custom Made and that's my crew. The Hall of JUSTUS is my second family. I'm like a cousin who lives in another state. When I come around, it's like a family reunion. I'm Custom Made. That's my crew, but the JUSTUS League shows me so much love people think I'm in it. I've never received so much love from a rap crew who was on. I've never received that much love. Shout out to them. They know I have their back for life and they got mine. That's my extended family. What do you want to say to everyone? Thanks to everybody supporting the music and my career. I've been rhyming my whole life and this is what I do. Anything you hear me do, it comes from my soul, even if it's a quick sixteen. I want to thank everybody and for supporting what I'm doing, supporting 9th Wonder and Custom Made. Thank you to everybody holding me down. I think Cloud 9 is going to make everybody happy. It's twelve songs in three days and it just feels good. It's an album, not a mixtape. There's concepts, different beats, and it's forty-five minutes, so as soon as it's done, you're going to have to rewind it. I'm going to keep doing what I do. Whatever I do, it's going to be authentic and I'm going to keep being me. Make friends with Skyzoo at http://myspace.com/skyzoo

By Brian Kayser

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