“I’ve lost a lot of sleep to dreams,” sings Aaron Livingston on The Roots’ track “Sleep.” The line is interesting in that it turns dreams on their head, showing them to be consuming rather than enabling or relaxing. Skyzoo knows exactly what it means to lose sleep to dreams. In fact, his upcoming album, A Dream Deferred, is all about how he has been able to accomplish some of his dreams in spite of this lack of sleep. He’s still far from being a sound sleeper, but as indicated by his Louis Vuitton wallet and generosity toward hungry writers – thank you very much for that waffle, sir – Skyzoo’s dreams are slowly becoming reality. Sitting down with us to discuss both the music that changed his life in the past and enables his life in the present, Skyzoo makes it very clear that his upcoming album is something you can’t miss.
So the title of your new album references a really iconic Langston Hughes poem. In the poem Hughes poses various questions and the main question is “What happens to a dream deferred?” Does the album answer that question?
The album expands on that question. What it does is it takes that question that he asks and pretty much what the whole poem represents and embodies it with what we deal with nowadays. Whether it’s me taking about myself or the average listener who is going through whatever they’re dealing with or dreams that they have, the question is what happens when everything that you dreamed of, everything that you foresaw happening, the road that you wanted to go on, what happens when none of that goes the way you thought it would? You had this dream and you thought it was going to be perfect. When anybody dreams of anything, they only see it going one way once they try to achieve it. What happens when it looks like it may not go that way? Or even if it does, what happens when none of it is what you thought it would be? That’s what the album is about.
What was your specific dream?
Music. Hands down. Just becoming an artist and just being “on,” whatever that means. And just getting out there and taking the music as far as I could. That was the dream since I was 9 years old.
Would you say that you’ve accomplished the dream now with the album?
I feel like I’m in the midst of accomplishing it. This is my second “album.” I’ve also had tons of mixtapes and EPs and collabo albums, so this is a part of it, but I don’t feel like the dream is over with. I’m in the middle of it.
On Theo vs JJ you have a line where you say, “Trying to be Huxtable, but predestined to be an Evans.” Would you say that you’re working towards being a Huxtable?
Absolutely. That’s the goal. That was another one of those dreams I had as a kid; I wanted to live that life. Before I even really understood what it meant, I just saw the surface value and I was all for it. But once I got older and really understood what the show was about and what it meant, I really want to live that life now! Now I get it!
So you still see yourself as caught up within that struggle?
Yeah. Absolutely. I don’t own no Brownstone yet. I’m not living that “Huxtable life” quite yet, but I feel like everything happening is en route to it. That’s not to say that I’m sitting here struggling cause I’m totally not, but we haven’t gotten to that point where I got a dope Brownstone in Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope. Nothing like that yet.
So even if you did become a Huxtable, once you got to that point, what would be after that?
Maintaining it. As quick as you get it, as quick as it can go. I think maintaining it would be what’s next. And just trying to still have that balance. You can gain all that and you can achieve that, but it’s about the balance, not losing who you are.
One of the interesting things that I find about “A Dream Deferred,” the poem, is that Hughes asks all these questions, but one question he doesn’t ask is who or what defers dreams. How would you answer that?
Oh man! The powers that be in whatever spheres your dreams take place in – a lot of times there are just forces out of your control. If you’re actively trying to achieve that, if you’re actively going toward it, – it’s one thing to sit at home and dream and it’s another thing to dream, wake up and then go out and fight for it. If you go out there and fight for it, a lot of times what happens if out of your control. You did put the effort in and go out and fight for it. A lot of times when you fight for it and it doesn’t work out the way you thought, a lot of time it doesn’t have anything to do with you.
That happens, definitely, and sometimes there’s things within us that we have to fight against as well. In the process of accomplishing your dreams, what powers – external and internal – have you had to deal with?
Outside of me, just dealing with the industry. The industry is a beast. I tell people all the time that are coming up, know what you’re getting yourself into it. It is a different animal, like nothing you’ve ever witnessed or experienced or had to deal with before. It is a different animal completely. So you deal with those things. Within the industry you deal with things you have no control over, the different politics and people in high places where they shouldn’t be who dictate things that they don’t know about. But as far as within, people just have to realize what they’re put here for. You can have a dream – I can sit here and dream want to be a baseball player though I can’t play baseball at all – but you have to realize what you’re put here for and what you’re really able to do. Once you realize that and have a meeting of the middle as far as what you want and what your dream is and what you’re really put here for and if those two things match, then you go. I had the dream to make music. I felt like I was put here to make music based on the way that I make music. The way I’m able to do it and how easy it comes to me shows that I’m supposed to do it. And I want to do it, so we’re good, let’s just go for it.
One of the songs is titled, “Spike Lee Was My Hero.” What is the significance of that “was?”
The significance is, if you listen to the record, it talks about my childhood, when I was growing up. It’s not like he isn’t my hero anymore, because he definitely is, but it more so talks about my childhood in the sense of when I was growing up this guy was my hero, as opposed to that guy or these guys over here and that’s why things turned out the way they did for me and why I I do what I do and why I think the way I think. It’s because this guy was my hero. That’s all.
Speaking of heroes, in “Jansport Strings” you mention Chi-Ali. That’s really interesting because Chi-Ali, when you were young he was blowing up, but he ended up in prison, so his dreams were deferred extensively. How do you feel about that?
It’s the irony of it. Because I say, “One time for Chi-Ali, I could be in a box if I didn’t see that screen.” My mother prayed that I wouldn’t be Chi-Ali. Not in the literal sense, like “I don’t want you to be a rapper,” but more like “I don’t want you to end up in life-changing situations where you get locked up” and things like that. And it just so happens that that’s what happened to him. But now my mother’s straight because I wanted to be Chi Ali. I wanted it and now my mother’s proud of me because I went out and made music and made myself and she looks at me like, “I can’t believe all the things you’re doing and it brings so much joy to me just to watch what you do.” So it’s just the irony of it and how it all played out as far as what I was able to take from him and what he winded up going through in his life, unfortunately. It’s just the irony of it all and the impact that the music, that someone can have on you without them even knowing. The funny thing is that I’ve actually been in talks with Chi lately. We’ve actually been kicking since he’s been home.
Oh, he’s home?!
Yeah, he got home about three weeks ago because he got out early. He was supposed to be in till next year, but he got out early because he got his degree. So it’s dope that we’ve been able to talk and that I was even able to relay to that to him and let him know that things in my life could’ve been a lot different. If you go in the other direction on my block, things look totally different. Things in my life could have been a lot different, but they weren’t and I feel like part of that reason is because I was 9 years old and I saw that video, and I wanted to do that. So you may not know the effect that you have on people, and that’s what the song really drops in on.
It’s good that you’ve been able to talk to him.
Yeah, it’s been dope. It’s kind of wild. It’s still bugging me out a little. I’m like damn this is the reason I started so young and now I’m able to let him know that and build with him. We text all day and he calls just to chop it up about random things. It’s amazing.
Full circle. Any collaborations coming soon?
We’ll see, haha.
In the promo video you did with 2 Dope Boyz a few months ago you talked about the album and whatnot. In it you said that some parts of the album will be like orchestral sections that tell a story. What does an orchestral section do that rhymes don’t?
It’s sort of the same role that it plays in a film. If you watch a film, you see the dialogue and here the things that they’re talking about and you see the setting, but when you hear that music, it puts you in that mood. It puts you in the mood that the director or the writer of the film wants you to be in and that you may not have been in by the words alone. You may listen to what they’re saying, but you may have missed a part of it or interpreted it in a certain way, but it’s supposed to be another way so here is an assist. Here’s a way to help you get it the way we want you to get it and see the vision that we’re trying to provide. And it’s the same thing with the music. If you listen to the album, a whole lot of it ends with these string sections; violas; violins, trumpets; tubas; trombones and different things that come in and help tie up the story when I’m done. Once I’m done with my two verses and my hook and my bridge, it really comes in and just lays it all out for you. The goal was to make people see it when they hear it.
In that same video you said that you think this will be a really groundbreaking album. In what ways would you say that it’s doing different things?
Well, besides the orchestral feel and the string sections and things like that, the lyricism – which I have always been known for – really just goes above and beyond. More than I ever have before. The closest thing to it would probably be Theo vs JJ. A lot of people felt like, “Man, you’re so lyrical. The stories you were telling were so vivid.” There were moments on there where I didn’t dumb down, but I scaled back as far as how deep into the story I wanted to go because I wanted to save that for A Dream Deferred. Just the layers and the things it talks about, the way things tie together – it starts on a high, but then it goes into a realization mode where it’s like this isn’t all it’s hyped up to be and from there on, I start tying it up like, maybe not, but here’s why I got into it in the first place. It just does things that I haven’t heard anyone do in hip-hop yet, story-telling wise.
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