The Breakfast ClubINTERVIEW: Mad Skillz Talks 'The Seven Number Ones' Album, Rap Ups, Uncle Murda, Ghostwriting, Grammy's + More
The Breakfast Club Sits Down With Mad Skillz To Discuss 'The Seven Number Ones' Album, Rap Ups, Uncle Murda, Ghostwriting, Grammy's. Listen For More!
Wake that ass up in the morning.
Breakfast Club Morning everybody, It's the j n V, Jess, Hilarie Charlamagne, the guy.
We are the Breakfast Club. You got a special guest in the building.
Yes, indeed got.
The brother skills.
What up? Man?
Are you feeling?
You know? Same?
It's different air freshener, Yeah, I mean just trying to keep it pushing.
Have you retired the wrap up? So do you have to do like because you gotta break it.
I mean the year it's a little easier, but it's just diddy, But do you do the wrap up?
Still haven't done the wrap up since like twenty I think the last one was twenty twenty two. For two years, so yeah, like two I stopped after like two years. I think I did the last one over like holes like on Core. I promoted it as like the last one, and then after that, I just I had a chill December like that song used to take up so much of my life at the end of the year, bro, I ain't didn't get to do Christmas shopping.
Go you know what I mean? Put up nothing.
You gotta go from January all the way, like all the eventful things that happen.
Oh you you're gonna have to do this ship. This shit is crazy.
People say that every year though, they like, you got to do one this ship, And I'm like, actually, I don't you know what I mean?
Did you know Murder have real issues over there?
Nah?
Nah, No, it was just like it was just fun. It was, you know what I mean, Like I never I never ran in the murder or nothing. And even if I did, we probably would have just looked at himself and started laughing, you know what I mean, Like, I know, he a character and that's what he do.
Imagine deeping over a wrap up should collaborated one.
Though, that's you know who said that first?
Clock Kent?
Really why Kent was the first person that said that.
And actually this year, after you know, Clock passed, I did think about it, you know what I mean, like that he asked me to do that, you know what I mean. In twenty eighteen, I was super stubborn, still battle rap mode. I was like, nah, I never do that, But then after Clock passed, I actually thought about it.
Y'all still got time, gotcha listen.
I just I just ain't gonna rap as long as him. I'm three minutes in and our attention spans too. Sure you gonna go fifteen minutes, Like, I ain't rapping that long.
Nobody, y'all got fourteen days left.
He got fourteen days. He on the clock.
Congratulations to being nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Spoken.
Word Poetry Album. Thank you?
What is that? What's that?
It's a stupid question, but to you, as a rapper, rappers are poets.
What is the difference between poetry and rap? At least from the.
Great on once you take the music out, you know what I mean, it's it's it's poetry, you know what I mean. I feel like all MC's are poets. So you know, the Grammy had it in a category before where it was a lot of other things happening in the same category. So maybe like a poetry album or spoken word album would be in the same category as like somebody reading the children's book and shout out to the brother j Ivy j Ivy who won last year. Yeah he he kind of advocated for it and let them know, like, yo, this is different, Like we shouldn't be competing against Barack Obama reading his book like we ain't go that's not spoken words. So he pushed forward to be its own category. Now it stands on its own and I got nominated this year. So it's wild, it's crazy, go up against it's me. I want to say, Malik yusef omar o'mary got one. I can't remember who else is in Mary Harwick. Yeah, Mari Harward got one old Queen Sheba.
And and an amazing artist named Tank from Tank in the Bankers.
Many How many times have you been nominating for Grammy?
I got nominated once as a writer when we did the Nikki album The Pink Print in twenty fifteen, but I think we lost to Kendrick that year. But this is the first time I've ever been nominated as mad Skills.
Now you got to say exactly because people are gonna take that.
Like I wrote a hook, I wrote the Night is Still Young, and I did that with like Tehran est Dein like it was like three of us.
Nikki Nikki write all her bass, all her boss. Now we lost. I think we lost the Ka that year.
So what would win the Grammy mean for you?
Oh man, listen, it would change my life and just you know, for the creatives in Virginia. Man, who are you know? Doing their thing and just pushing the culture forward. It like we always talk about Philly and va Is being like the red headed step child in the music industry, you know what I mean. But we collaborated a lot, so it would mean a lot, man. And this is probably my most personal project today. I ain't never been this person of my music. And I almost wasn't even gonna put it out. Wow, And my wife was like, no, you should. You should really put this out, and I was like, bad, it's too personal, Like I don't you know how we I'm like, man, I don't need everybody knowing my business like so to be rapping for thirty years. And then the first time I really get personal and vulnerable on the project, it get nominated for a GRAMM.
Crazy.
What made you want to do a poetry album versus a traditional hip hop? Alb especially saying that she was getting so personal right.
I started it And when I started at it, the first two songs was like raps, but they were so I was I was moving like and I was like, I gotta slow this down. I want people to be able to digest this. So I tried it another way. And then once I started sending the song around there like friends. They was like yo, nah, keep going. And the song the album is called the Seven Number Ones, and it's about seven things that happened in my life that literally changed the direction of my life. So the first song was like my parents meeting. The second song was when my mom used to play music around the house, my first love, you know what I mean, my first daughter being born.
So it's all first and that's how the album came about. Is about my parents. Yes, you got your grandma featured.
On Yes, which is crazy.
So if I went to Grammy, like my grandma would get you know what I mean, a participation plaque like so to be at ninety seven years old, you know what I mean. So yeah, I used to sit down with her and I never knew how my parents met. So I just had a phone and just throw it down and record her just so I could go back and listen to it later. And I put it on the album and it's like the hooks. So my grandma is actually featured on the first song.
Didn't that The crazy thing? How much we don't know about our parents. Yes, they had a whole life before us, but we don't ever sit down and talk to him about it.
Yes, man, it was.
It was therapeutic for me to learn because my mother died of a drug overdose, like a heroin overdose, like when I was like thirty three maybe, So it wasn't until like American Gangster came out and I watched it and I remember seeing them going back and forth bringing the work from Vietnam and my stepfather, I mean, my father went to Vietnam.
So I made the connection, like damn, my father was the person who.
Turned my mom on to that, and they died thirty years later, like to the day. So it was just weird, but to not have that but then to realize it later, so yeah, man, it's a real thing. The album is crazy. It's definitely very introspective and vulnerable.
And then it's also very personal. The track about your parents because it's how they passed his try that they both died from drug over there.
Yeah, yeah, both died from a drug overdose. And when I was little, they was like, oh, you know, your father died from a heart attack. But then later on as I got older, like they was real with me and they told me what happened.
And was this the most emotional track?
Yeah, that one and the one about my daughter, Like I literally said, you know, I played my daughter's songs all the time. Like I posted a video the other day, like of her getting in the car and I wanted to play the song. So as soon as I get in the car, I play the song. I'm guarant played the song. She's like, yo, I watched someone play something. She said, did you do a wrap up? And I was like, nah, it's kind of a wrap up, but it's about you, you know what I mean. So I played it for and I always got cameras around, so I had to go pro and the dash or whatever, and I'm taping her reaction. And then I showed it to a couple of friends and he was like My man was like, oh, you should do a video for this. And I was like, bro, this is the video like me and her sitting in the car listening to how I Because I was scared when I first I was nineteen, Yeah, I was nineteen.
That was nineteen years old. I was skying you know what to do? You know what I mean?
So to see her now as an adult and to be able to flourish in life, that's all you want for your kids. She's thirty one there thirty one. Yeah, So we said that call me in and I'm a cry and I'm a cry about my kids. As soon as the glasses came up, everybody was like, oh, I know you about to cry. And I'm like, man, listen, if it's something I'm gonna cry about, it's gonna be my kids.
You know what I mean?
Do you have those conversations with your daughter that you never had what your parents about?
Yes, you do have this cond yes, And I try to make sure that my kids know things about my life and early on in my life, I wasn't perfect. I was a mistake. I made mistakes. I was a young father. But to be able to move forward.
And learn from those mistakes, those are things that helped me in my life.
Now those mean a lot because I do that with my kids. So I try to talk about everything that happened, especially my parents' is a lot.
But like if you talk about I don't.
Even know how my parents.
Met, right, but I just think about it like I just didn't think about it.
But my kids know that. You know, whatever how you and your wife dad is right?
Are you taking more personal when people critique tracks like this that are so personal to you.
No, not really.
I mean, once you put art into the world, it's gonna get critiqued, you know what I mean. Period, I always felt like whatever it is, once you put a song out, people have the option to either say, Yo, that's fire, that's trash, you know what I mean. But for me, this project has been able to connect with people in a way that a lot of my rap albums never did because people are like, Yo, I listened to your project and I thought about my number one like you know what I mean, Like like you thinking about the first time you started djaying, and you thinking about I want to be on radio, Yo, I want to be a comedian.
You know what I mean.
Like those moments stick with us, like I could ask you, like I can ask all y'all, Yo, what you was doing Like November nineth, nineteen ninety four. You probably like, I don't remember, and I'd be like, Yo, where was you the first time you heard ill Matic? And you bet yo, I was in my Man Carbs High School?
You know what I mean. The music attaches to the memory.
I mean, I was two years old, so I don't know what I was doing.
Yeah, you probably something with a bottle.
You know what I'm saying.
I definitely remember the first time I was heard imadic. That was a good question from j just though, because it's like somebody is different. Somebody be like yo that but no whack yo.
Right yeah yeah, nah, yeah you're talking about I get it. And that's the reason why you can't dive too deep into the comments. And I saw somebody yeah it was kind of corny, and I'm like, all right, cool. It ain't for you, you know what I mean, But for me it was super therapeutic. I was still go right, not as much as I used to, just because the music now is a little different.
I mean, I can get in that bag easy.
But the calls don't come as much from the younger artists because they want to keep all of they publishing and all of they I still get calls from some of the ogs, but you know, I just I mean, put the pen to the paper.
However, you ever have ideas for artists like you see that you love and you like I have songs, and I'll be like, yo, like I have I have songs like complete verses and hooks, and I'll be like, yo, this would be perfect on this person.
This to be perfect on this verson, but sometimes we won't have the same vision. So I hold on to songs a lot and just sit on them, and you know, we just we just do what we do. But I never want to die with the art in me, all stuff on a hard drive, you know what I mean.
I want to put it out.
I was gonna ask, you know, with all the writing that you've done, how lucrative is publishing? Did you get all the publishing that was deserved or a lot of times they just gave you a check and say you're not gettingne of that published.
In the beginning, I mean, yeah, yeah, in the beginning, most of it was like you know, quick little bags here, you know what I mean, brown paper bag money. Then I learned about publishing later and how lucrative that could be, but I never did a publishing deal, So for me, I always I always was able to wait for my money, like nobody was able to dangle, you know what I mean, a couple hundred thousand in front of me, and I'm like, I gotta get that now, because I'm like I can wait six months for mine, you know what I mean, because when it come, I know it's going to be more than that, and there's so many stipulations on publishing now and this, that and the third.
So I'm like, man, I don't really want to you know what I mean.
I never really wanted to wait, wait, like take a loan from them and then just have to deal with the paying them back.
So I'm like, I wait for my bread is it's.
Still an unwritten rule that ghost riders aren't supposed to talk about who they rolle for because it's not taboo no more for people to have.
I mean, yeah, it's not really you know, I don't, but you know what I mean, I never really revealed.
Well I won't say I never really revealed, but.
I make more money when they ain't nobody talking about ghosts, right, you know what I mean?
Oh, And if people work with me, they know.
Most of the time, I just ain't gonna throw them out there under the bus for no reason.
But sometimes people just know about it. They be like, oh, I know you wrote that.
Earlier this year, I did a show in Virginia and I actually performed the song that I wrote, and then it was in like a McDonald's campaign, like maybe like a month later, and people was like.
Oh, you wrote that, And I was like, I've been wrote that, you know what I mean.
I feel like a lot of rappers these days, a lot of younger rappers, they feel like they lose credibility if somebody, if they if it gets out there, then somebody goes writing for them.
Yeah, I mean sometimes you just in the studio and it's just help. You're like, yo, what if you say it like this?
You know what I mean?
Like even like like like for instance, my homeboy KP k KP the Great he ended up on Kendrick's alright, but only because Pharrell was like, you know, we gonna be all right, And he was like, Yo, I think you should say it like we gonna be all right.
He was like really, he was like, yeah, it just sounds slim. Get that way. You got writing credit. Gotta grant me like he just told him how to.
He just took something as small as Pharrell saying it one way and for real being you know in siund minded body going yo, KP told me to do that.
He's owed some credit off.
That's why because most people wouldn't have did that, would have said I got said wait, it gave a little checking, you.
Know what I mean. But but and That's the thing about it.
To be able to be in a room and collaborate with your friends, you know what I mean, and make something dope with your family and your friends. You don't care about the credit because like like Quincy Jones always sad when y'all start talking about money, God lead the room anyway, I agree.
You know what I mean?
So you we ain't here arking about something that we ain't even made no money over yet.
Like what's the point. It stops the creative process.
When when you hear people that you when you wrote for somebody, and then you hear people say that person.
Is the goat you ever be like, I listen, actually the.
I put I put it to you. I put it to you like this.
Sometimes I always say, like, you know, if I fix people's roofs on they houses, and people was like, oh, I like his roof, I like his roof, his roof is dope, And I'm like, they ain't even seen my roof, And I'm cool with that. But hopefully if I did my business right from making all these roofs, I got a nice roof too, you know what I mean.
Just look at it that way.
How did you get the opportunity to write jay Z's rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.
That came from Questlove. He called me and he asked me. It was weird how he said it. I just I was in a barbershop.
I picked the phone. He was like, Yo, when's the last When did you stop listening the whole? I was like what? He was like, when did you stop listening to jay Z? I was like what you mean? He was like, I heard you say before.
Like back in the day, like you would be able to hear jay Z verse or a line that you could just quote it, Like when did you stop? And I was like, I said maybe the last thing I might have checked out. I was like four four four you know what I'm saying.
He was like, all right, cool, I need I need you to do your thing, but the way you do it, like wrap up style, but with like all of the quinn essential jay Z lines you know what I mean, like I will not lose and you know what I mean all this stuff.
So I was like, all right, cool, and he was like, and I need it in nine days?
Wow?
And I was like wait what He was like, I need it in nine days. He was like, I'm about to pitch it to Beyonce because at first Beyonce was supposed to do the whole thing. I think it was Beyonce's idea to have different celebrities say different lines. So once I started writing it, we started going through the entandres of who would say each line. So that made it even doper for somebody to say a line that was, you know, textbook with them. So having like Will Smith say you know no more big Willie my name, you know what I mean, like those type of lines, and then even having Date David let Himan say the CBS line I keep one eye open like CBS. That was the hardest part of the whole thing, and David led Himan was like, yo, y'all, this is the line y'all want me to say, Like I just it don't feel cool, and we're like, yo, if you say this line, it's gonna be the dopest line in the whole thing, and it was. And then to have Blue at the end say the ghost write a line like it was just.
Dope, man.
And he hit me afterwards. Didn't had my number, but he just hit me afterwards and thank me, and I was just like wow, like you wake up to a text from Hole saying that was dope, Like thank you, Like that was crazy. He didn't have your number because he asked quest love for it.
Oh got you got?
You know what I mean?
Like billionaire Hole, I ain't had that number, you know what I mean? I had two thousands, ninety hos, you know what I mean.
But shot to jay z.
Man becoming mad Skills. At what point, uh, when did you drop the mad from your name?
No? No, no, it's still Mad Skills. It's still Mad Skills.
Around the time when I was on Raucus, I was going by skills for a little bit, but then one of my partners told me. He was like, man, why you change your name. I was like, I ain't want to start sounding the old school. He was like food, Nike, don't change Nike. He was like, they make you know, they might make ad Max's Air Force ones, but Nike always Nike. And I was like, damn, you're right. So I just went back to Mad Skills after that. That made him like ninety eight nine And then no, I.
Was about to ask you about the documentary you dropped on YouTube.
Oh yeah, now these girl brunch I did a during quarantine. I did a h a like a stream kind of like D Nice was doing. But I accidentally created a sorority of women that still stick together to this day through a stream, you know what I mean. And I made a film about it and put it out, and uh, these are women from all over the world, all over the United States, and they still link up to this day. And they called a brunch club and they just it's just dope, man to be able to connect people through music. And you know what we was going through and COVID was hard, but you know, people like D Nice and Jazzy Jeff. For myself, we was online DJ, and those people still stuck with us. You know, he'd still do club quarantine concerts and whatnot. So it's people that was attached to that and are still attached to it to this day.
So I made a documentary about its artist. No, no, no, it's it's I was just playing songs.
But the women that were on there, they accidentally started becoming friends. So now they go on trips together, they go to you know what I mean, they go to New Orleans, the Essence Fest together. It's like like eighty of them, you know what I mean. It's crazy. So it's a dope movie. I throw it on YouTube and if you ever want to see the store, you can check it out on there. It's called Mad Skills in the nineties, girl, bru.
Why you haven't written any like TV shows or movies and stuff like that boot boom.
So listen after the wrap up, you know what I mean. I'm chilling and I'm watching y'all. I was watching y'all and my wife ended up saying she was wanted to watch the show in the show called Supercell. So we started watching super Sell and I'm looking at the show and I'm like, rap Man. I was like, why do I know that name?
Baby?
She was like, I don't know. We watched the first episode. I was like, Yo, this shit is dope.
I was like rap Man, Like why that name just sounds for me.
We watched the whole show and I kept seeing created and written by rap Man. So I seen him on the Breakfast Club and I'm like, Oh, that's the dude that did the show.
Like why, I feel like I know him? Yo? Why Win searched his name and.
He used to do the UK wrap up for like ten years, so he was doing wrap up. I think he said that so I DMed him and I was like, yo, Bro, I checked your show out, man, Like, you know what I mean. I think it's dope, great work. I said, I remember you from back in the day, used.
To do the Rapper. He was like, oh, man skills. I bet your old ship Bro. I'm sorry, man, I took your old ship man. I used to do the UK version. Man. Man, it's amazing to have you in my DMS.
When I was like, Yo, it's crazy, right, I was like, it's crazy to go from writing wrap ups to writing shows.
And I tell my wife that.
She like, yeah it is, And I'm like, you know what I mean. So I'm like, I definitely got some ideas. I pitched some shows shout there like James Samuel and we got some things in the work Black thought.
You know, QUESTLA two and.
Five Entertainment, Like, I got some I definitely got some things that could make it the television.
It only makes sense. I feel like that's the next, the next level for you.
Yeah.
Yeah, I got like at least three shows that I'm trying to pitch one. I've already pitched two more like movies.
So yeah, what did you start DJ DJ? When I was little you know what I mean.
I started taking it seriously in probably around twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen.
I used to tow with Jazzy Jeff.
So after that I always knew how to, you know, I always knew how to you know, play records and blend or whatever.
But parties was a whole different thing. And I tell people all the time, like.
You know, you can sit in your room and practice scratching, cutting, fading, but you can't practice reading the room, you know what I mean?
If you can tell you that.
And DJing is the one job where you know instantaneously whether you're doing a good job or a bad job. You play a song, everybody stopped dancing.
You're doing a bad job.
So for me, djaying, the passion that I lost in rapping I found in DJ. So I started going heavy with it. And it just people like Jazzy Jeff, Clock can Ki Capri was all of them was supportive, you know what I mean. So I just started doing parties. I've been I've been doing parties ten ten eleven years. We just did a party homecoming a bunch of parties. Yeah, I always you always win you in VA. So yeah, I love DJing.
I love it.
I want to talk about what has happened in VA the last couple of years. Of course, I went to Hampton University and when I went there, it seemed like, you say, VA was the outcast.
But now I.
See everybody in VA coming together to make VA great, from the fight to push your T's festival to Pharrell's festivals. To break down what's happening in Virginia because it's something I've never seen before, which I love.
You know, all those years of getting overlooked even though we have you know, some of the greatest musicians and artists.
In the world. Athletes as well, Yeah, athletes.
As well, Ai vic you know what I mean. Like we always had a chip on our shoulder, you know what I mean. So, and it was never really unified. So now it's becoming unified to where, you know, we having festivals and we supporting each other, we writing records with each other, collaborating and just helping the younger generation come up. Because I want people to, you know, I want people to look back at Virginia and be like, damn, they stick together, you know what I'm saying. Like, so like on this album, I got hell of people from the Crib, you know, did Hooks, did production. So like I said, winning this Grammy, you know with my friends from the Crib means more because I could have got any producers, you know, I could have hollered at some cats, but I wanted to do it with my friends and my family. So Virginia is always home. Man, Like they say, it's something in the water and it always will be.
You know what that dread because right you had a you know, pushing and the clips, the clips and Parral and the Neptunes, yeap clips and Neptunes, and then you had Missy and Town Timbland, Missy and Magoo. But it almost feels like in a lot of ways Va Young they gave a sound away, Yeah, they.
Gave what if they would have just kept that sound with just ba rgis.
I always thought about what if Pharrell and Chad had did like a many fresh you know what I mean, and only rocked with my my homies and my crew is only getting this vibe like Manny was just Wayne Juviie hot boys, like you know what I mean. I felt like it could have been something special, but it and it's still grew into something special. But you know, you can't tell them another man what to do.
But did they try?
Did they try with clips and try a lot of it? And I don't think people understood the sound right.
It was so futuristic, you know what I mean when it came out, Like Teddy Riley didn't know what to do with them in nineteen ninety three because it already sounded like twenty twenty five then. So I think the world had to catch up with Pharrell and them sound and Chad, and once they.
Did, everybody wanted it.
And you ain't about to turn down Britney and Justin and Michael Jackson, and you're not about to turn down those production cos.
S think with Timberlande, I think Timberlande was the same, like his sounds was so futuristic, he wasn't gonna.
Turn down why you know what I mean? Why so?
But Tim is an amazing dude, man, And so it's in Neptunes. I love those dudes absolutely.
Yeah.
Man, Well the album is out right now. It's streaming now. It says something.
About voting, so the Grammy can vote on it starting again.
No, they can start. It's starting. It started last week and you can vote up until January third and I am in the Best Spoken Word Album category or for the album it's seven number one. So we just are here campaign and if you listen to the project and you like it and you are a Grammy voter, but feel free to, you know, click that button for your boy.
Writing is such a lost start, man.
It is. I still write, I still lyric.
I still literally walk around with a book and a pen, like I like to see my ideas. The phone is cool, like I could put in a voice note or whatever go into my notes, but I like to be able to open it up and see it and when it's done, cross it out, you know what I mean.
So for me, I walk around with pens and paths and things like that. I still like the physically right absolutely.
And lastly, New Year's Eve, you're gonna be at the R and B Block party. My family's doing it with you, of course, family, Antonio, get your tickets now if you're in Norfolk, if you're in Virginia, the seven five seven, it's the Norfolk Scope. Tickets are still available as you as Brian Michael Cox it shot the bank is is everybody is everybody, so RB if you're out in Virginia, make sure you pull up on them. The R and B block Party is one of my favorite thing needs to do throughout the year, so definitely get your tickets.
Appreciate you for joining us.
Thank y'all for having me.
Man I will catch y'all, happy, have holidays, Good New Year to all of y'all.
Appreciate you. Charlote. Let me come up, my guys.
It's Mad Skills, It's the Breakfast Club.
Good morning peace. Wake that ass up in the morning. Breakfast Club.
