Audio: Skyzoo "Jansport Strings (prod. 9th Wonder)"
August 07, 2012
The Great Debater got a lot of well deserved attention, but now Brooklyn emcee and lyricist supreme Skyzoo is moving on to his next project. Skyzoo will be releasing his sophomore album, A Dream Deferred, on October 2nd via Sky's new imprint The Faculty Inc, a label deal with Duck Down Music. The LP will have features from Jill Scott, Talib Kweli, Raheem DeVaughn, Freeway, and more with production from Jahlil Beats, Black Milk, 9th Wonder, Focus..., DJ Khalil, and more. Today, we get a listen to the first single, the 9th produced "Jansport Strings." I'll let Sky break down the song for you, after the jump.
The idea behind Jansport Strings is not based on it being literal, but more so in the figurative sense. As a kid in NY, the strings on your Jansport bag were a sign of power and presence. Kids would steal the strings off of each other's bags and burn the tips to prevent getting robbed of them once they got them. The song is a 3 minute auto-bio of me as a kid in Brooklyn and seeing more than my friends and I had bargained for. In essence, my Jansport strings tied it all together, seeing what we all saw and what it made us. The ending is a clip from Video Music Box, the legendary NYC video show run by DJ Ralph McDaniels. This episode in particular was the debut of Chi-Ali's 'Age Ain't Nothin But A Number'. Seeing that video that day on this episode of VMB made me start rhyming. This clip was literally the moment that changed my life.