S. Samuel
[With his new joint Barrel Brothers album finally on store shelves, Brooklyn's own Skyzoo gives SOHH readers the inside on why he kept fans waiting to see him and Torae drop a studio release together. #SOHHEXCLUSIVE]
What had happened was we did “Get It Done” with DJ Premier back in 2006 or 2007. I think it was the end of 2006 and the start of 2007. We released it and it was double-sided vinyl, with a Side A, Side B, and it blew through, it blew up like crazy. Everyone was talking about it.
From there, people started saying we should do a full album together. We didn’t really jump right on it. We were like, “Okay, no doubt.” We didn’t really think people were serious with it. We thought people were just talking. But then the talks started getting louder and louder and going on for longer.
We kept realizing the conversations were getting louder and were like, “Maybe we should just give them what they want.” But at the time, we hadn’t individually established ourselves like we wanted to. I hadn’t had a debut album yet. Torae hadn’t had a debut album yet. We just had a bunch of mixtapes and were running around the streets with the mixtapes. So we decided to establish ourselves as artists first and, from there, we’ll see what it is and if things are right.
From there, I put out two full albums, Salvation and A Dream Deferred. I put out a bunch of mixtapes and he put out a lot of projects. We then felt like we had done enough individually to come together and put out a project.
Empire Distribution then came along and said they wanted to get behind it and support the project. They’re an amazing company with the way they’re running and moving. So we said, “Yeah, we’re ready.” Everybody had the same energy and we just decided to push the button.
We have relationships with a lot of the same people. We both have worked with DJ Premier, iLLmind, Black Milk, we have relationships with a lot of the same people.
There’s a couple people Torae might have brought to the table and I may have brought to the table. But we were together for every beat on this album. We were together with every producer. We reached out to every featured artist and it worked out in our favor.
Click here to check out Skyzoo’s top five reasons you need Barrel Brothers!
