Skyzoo

Born Gregory Skyler Taylor in Brooklyn, in the Crown Heights neighborhood and then partly raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Skyzoo belongs to a New York hip-hop tradition focused on writing, storytelling and soul- and jazz-rap-informed production with a classic edge. Active since the early 2000s, he first drew attention with a series of mixtapes circulated in the New York indie circuit, before a collaboration with 9th Wonder took shape on Cloud 9: The 3 Day High in 2006. This initial visibility led to The Salvation in 2009, then A Dream Deferred in 2012, two albums that establish precise, dense, autobiographical rap, tied to the details of urban daily life as much as to Brooklyn's cultural references. Skyzoo then develops a steady discography between solo projects and collaborative albums, notably Barrel Brothers with Torae in 2014, Music for My Friends in 2015, The Easy Truth with Apollo Brown in 2016, In Celebration of Us in 2018, Retropolitan with Pete Rock in 2019, All the Brilliant Things in 2021, and The Mind of a Saint with The Other Guys in 2023. In his tracks as on stage, Skyzoo favors a sober approach, grounded in the fluidity of phrasing, narration and instrumentals nourished by soul, boom bap and jazz inflections.