On June 11th, Skyzoo will be releasing his new album, All the Brilliant Things. And today, the Brooklyn emcee has come through with a second single, “St. James Liquors” featuring Aaria.
A follow-up to last month’s “Bed-Stuy is Burning,” the new song helps further drive the concept of the project home with another stellar performance from Zoo and his counterparts.
“The album as a whole is about gentrification and cultural appropriation, from cover to cover. It starts with my neighborhood with the way that it once was and ends with what it’s currently turned into,” Skyzoo says. “With ‘St. James Liquors,’ it’s a story of what my neighborhood used to be like, and it uses 13 year old me as a catalyst of these two types of individuals that my friends and I were in awe of: the guys outside and the musicians who represented them. As a young kid writing rhymes and growing up a block away from the late great Notorious BIG, inspiration was easy to get, as it was literally footsteps away. The tug of war of the guys on the block who were stars and the guys who represented them who were stars, and the irony of them going hand in hand, was something that had my head on a swivel as a teenager. This song breaks down the dichotomy of the two. Kenny Keys created the beautiful backdrop, my long time collaborator Sean Taylor added the trumpets, and rising songstress Aaria took the vision I had harmonically and brought it all home. The title was the name of the liquor store in my hood that’s now turned into a pharmacy. Sums it all up perfectly.”
Fittingly released on what would’ve been Biggie’s 49th birthday, “St. James Liquors” can be heard below. Check it out and be on the lookout for All the Brilliant Things, out next month.
