HipHopDX: Why do you guys always release albums in the fall?
The only album I dropped in the summer, was last summer when I dropped
Music For My Friends, just because I have started the album early, started in late October early November of 2014. So then in 2015 I was excited it made sense. “Luxury” is a nice summertime record … jeeps ride around. It all lined up to that. It’s been a little while I put something out, so I said let’s roll with the summer on this one. Normally like you said, I’ve done the fall, and Apollo the same thing. We’ve individually before we even worked together in how much we had in common from a business sense. As far as when you put records out, and how you do the artwork. How to even pick the tape on the CDs so that when you autograph it, it doesn’t smudge off so it doesn’t turn fans away from wanting to buy more. Like all these little tricks of the trade, I always thought I was the only person on that. Apollo was like, ‘When we do it, I want to do this, I want to do that,” and I was like “Yo! I think the same way.’’ It was all great synergy it all connected.
Apollo Brown: Releasing albums in the fall … I always release September-October. Mainly because my type of music calls for that. The music that I make is something that you listen to in the fall. I don’t really make a lot of happy music, a lot of going to beach with ya top down type of music. I make somber, relatable life-type music. In the fall, when kids are going back to college, or people walking down the streets, riding around or whatever, it’s the type of gray sky music that you listen to. It just seems like to me the best time for people to buy albums, to buy music. It’s just something about it. Working on this album was amazing.
HipHopDX: How long
The Easy Truth take to make?
Skyzoo: It took a week.
Apollo Brown: Seven days, max.
Skyzoo: So the way we did it, I’ve enjoyed telling it because it makes us both laugh. Apollo sent me 40 beats back in January or February. The plan was for me to go down there in April, so I had a couple months to live with the beats, etc. He sent me like 40 beats, I picked a good 14-15 — you swap beats out, that always happens. You hear a new beat, ‘oh that shyt is crazy’ and you swap beats out. When we started booking the flights and the timeline, Apollo was like “Write to the beats for a couple months, come down today. Record eight songs one day, seven songs the next,” or something like that. I was like “Um, yeah, I don’t work like that; I write everything on the spot. I need more than two days.”
Apollo got a little nervous because he was like “Ah, man we gotta book more studio time, to budget is gonna get raised; you saying it’s going to be a week, it’s probably going to take a month, it’s going to take mad time. You got to write a whole album!” I said, ‘Bro I promise you, all I need is a week, all I need is a week. We get the whole shyt done.
Apollo Brown: I was like ‘Yo at least half the album will be done.’ Because I always had a rule, no writing in the studio. Because time is money. That’s just what it is for me. I’m like ‘Yo write it inside the studio, when we come to the studio it’s work time. It’s all recording. But I mean because Skyzoo is who Skyzoo is, top five MC in the game, it’s always worked for him so I’m not going to stifle his creativity. So I made an exception to the rule this time around. I’m going to let him do what he does. And he did what he did. We got done with that shyt in six-seven days, done it on time.
Skyzoo: I think why he was comfortable with it was because we didn’t book the hotel for a month. The fact that all I need is a week. Seven nights in the hotel, round trip flight I’m good, boom, boom; boom and we was done in six and a half days. We took a day off in between, the whole nine; and it was dope. Just making Apollo comfortable with that. After we were done Apollo was like ‘Yo I can’t believe you wrote this whole shyt in a week. You wrote this album, the stuff that you talking about the lyrics, entendres, the meaning, whatever, in a week. If I have to write a quick 16 for somebody, a quick feature verse, that shyt just takes me 20 minutes.
I’m just a fast writer. As long as it doesn’t jeopardize the integrity of the quality of what I’m putting out. If I’m racing the clock or hit 20 minutes — because everybody knows me for that — but if the verse is corny, then I might as well have waited. It’s really not about me racing the clock. It’s just the way it naturally comes to me. One of my top two favorite rappers ever, Mos Def; was like ‘I write rhyme sometimes I won’t finish today’ but that doesn’t make me like Mos Def any less. Some people write fast, some people take they time, vibe out, sit with it, come back. I’m just a guy who is blessed to be able to write fast without losing the integrity. So we did it in a week, man. A-Z every lyric was written in Detroit, Michigan at the studio. He got to see the process.
Apollo Brown: I got to make beats on the spot that was cool too. Got to make a few beats on the spot and take other beats. So it did work out better. I was really happy with what we had on the way home.
HipHopDX: That’s really impressive. It speaks to the caliber of artists both of you guys are to be able to break out of that comfort zone but still create a project that everyone wants to gravitate to.
Apollo Brown: Making an album together, a producer and MC album is all about compromise; it’s all about coming together and having that common goal to make good music. It was easy man, because we had that common goal, and we have a lot in common when it comes to the music. So it was natural and organic. ‘You like this joint, ya this joint, bet I like this joint to’ we really didn’t have any disagreements. It was cool all the way through.
Skyzoo: Yeah, and personality-wise too, we’re just both easy going dudes. We crack jokes, bug out, laugh at shyt on Instagram, listen to dope beats. So from that aspect, getting along was easy. It’s all about having a good ass time; nothing wrong with that.
Apollo Brown: And we worked together before and we’ve been on tour together. So it was all natural.
HipHopDX: What’s your take on Pete Rock’s stance. He went at Lil Yachty, went at Young Dolph. Here’s what I say: Why put energy into something like that when we still have artists like Skyzoo and Apollo Brown carrying the torch for the what many consider to be definitive Hip Hop? Is there a way that all these different genres can co-exist or are you guys like the Last of the Mohicans?
Skyzoo: I personally think there is a way. I think the reason why people get upset is because it seems like all the light is in one corner of the room. If that light was being spread out, if we all in one room; if there’s a little light there, a little light here, a little light on me, I think everybody would be aight. Because people fail to remember, back in the day you had N.W.A and Public Enemy and then after that on the radio, the next song would be De La, and they would talk about how they were anti that without dissing them. We’re more of the flower kids, positive vibes, right after playing “Straight Outta Compton” or “Dopeman.” And they were on tour together. You had people touring like Will Smith with N.W.A, who also toured with LL, it was all together. Kid ‘n Play and The Fresh Prince, touring with LL Cool J and N.W.A. Everybody was okay with it back then, because everybody was getting the light. Because it was Hip Hop and it was young fresh and new. Now this chick has been around for 30+ years and she only paying attention to one corner of the room and I think that’s why people get upset.
HipHopDX:: I remember in the 90s, I only got to see Gang Starr videos on Rap City but on the radio, you would hear Freak Nasty “Put My Hand Up On Your Hip” and the 69 Boyz.
Skyzoo: And I think being in New York, maybe I was a little more spoiled. Even in the 90s we did have it like that on the radio. You would definitely hear Pete and CL Smooth in the middle of the day. You would hear “Down With The King (Remix),” or “They Reminisce Over You” or “Straighten it Out.” You would hear it at like 3 o’clock in the middle of the day. And you would hear again at 4:30 then again at 8. You heard in between that whatever else was going on. You would go from a Wu-Tang record to the Bush Babies to Craig Mack, or whatever it was. Maybe being in New York we was a little spoiled. Even when the West was running around, New York was heavy on that. We had all that playing. The
Above the Rim soundtrack, and it’s based in Harlem, the whole soundtrack is Death Row. The only New Yorkers on that album SWV. The whole album is an L.A. album but the movie is based in Harlem. That shows you who was running the game in 93’; it was L.A. But New York though, they showed that love. So maybe it was a little spoiled up here at my radio when I was listening to Hot 97. They were juggling. The corporate aspect is the key. That’s where it came from. They was like ‘Whoa whoa whoa, there’s this much money in what these little negroes is running around doing for the past 20 years, 15 years. But if we get that, we need to control that. I think nowadays that’s become more relevant than ever. It’s a whole ‘nother conversation.
We got some videos in the pipeline coming up. The video
for “A Couple Dollars” with Joell [Ortiz] is going to come out at some point this week, I think it’s going to be lined up with the actual release date if I’m not mistaken. Then we have three more in the can and not one more out next week. Lot’s a visuals coming up; a behind the scenes documentary coming out. A 10-minute making of the album where we break it down, show us in the lab. A lot of little tools and things with the project.
And the dope thing about the project is that it’s available in all formats. It’s vinyl, digital, CD, cassette tapes, so nowadays and beyond it gives you certain reflection of what was, which makes people feel good if they were in the what was part of the conversation. 20 years old, you in college. Somebody tweeted me today saying ‘yo I’m so glad you dropping another album this week because it’s right when midterms start and you always hold me down in college. Every year in college you drop an album for me to study to and listen and do what I gotta do in school. This is somebody if they in college, that means they under 23-years-old. You can’t say I’m making old school rap if I’m impacting 22 and 21-year-olds. These guys are the same guys listening to J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Joey Bada$$, and they listening to us. It means more than just being pigeonholed in with what was going on in ’86. I love what was going on in ‘86 because it made us. It made us what we are in 2016.
