DJ Drama & Statik Selektah present Skyzoo: The Power of Words

For years that kid Skyzoo has been dropping mixtape after mixtape trying to make a name for himself and while he has, like most good MCs, he’s never been able to taste mainstream success. Even when he dropped his well received, Corner Store Classic, it wasn’t enough to propel him to household name status or even to radio playlists across the country. But everyone knows that pressure makes diamonds, and this man is constantly dropping gems with his music.

The Analogic produced, “Appreciation” has Sky sarcastically thanking biters and dick riders over a creepy whistle that could’ve been used to introduce the new X-Files film. With the Jay-Z voice sampled “Back on The Map” Sky gets an assist from Maino to craft a straight certified street/jeep banger. With the proper speakers and bazookas, this song can crack the pavement on the hardest block in your hood. Not to mention strain a few necks on that block. If that doesn’t do the trick then make sure the next track is the 9th Wonder produced “Left 4 Dead.” If the bass and drums don’t crack the sidewalk then EPMD’s flow will.

But his creativity really shined on the J Dilla-produced “Alphabet Soup” where dude was spitting lines like, “They pulling Red Magic/took my old and labeled it new/you seen ‘em? They braggin' on how they write crack and spit blow/but they don’t got no lines, they Judy Winslow/I scrapped more than all of them ever saved/so if I fast forward they’re still in the yesterday/get it? I ain’t even got to effort the pen/it’s on smash like Legend and ‘em/Drama I’ll tell ‘em again/and lyrically Iiterally fly so high that I could record with Biggie in the sky/so why would one be opposed to giving me what I deserve when I could make three words and make ‘em 9.” Trust me when I say it sounds a lot better than it reads. It’s all about the flow over the production. R.I.P. J. Dilla.

I never got into Skyzoo like that, but I know good and true hip-hop music when I hear it. Not only is the production on this mixtape top notch (the man knows how to choose his beats), but how he creates around the sound is just as effective. He meshes his style into the beat and gives you something you can feel and just ride too. Any hip-hop purist will appreciate what this man has to offer and what he’s doing. But it’s a matter of whether or not this man wants to be commercially successful. But from the sounds of this man’s music, he’s doing this straight for the love of the culture. And for that he should be given all this world’s riches.-Infamous O

Hottest Joint: “Left 4 Dead”

Weakest Joint: “Clearer Hearing”