After surviving a near-fatal shooting, Detroit rapper Skilla Baby has found unexpected allies among hip hop legends helping him shape his new album.
Skilla calls this outcome “the best bullet I ever caught” and talks more about the support he receives from the veterans in his interview with Bootleg Kev.
I was put in some of these rooms based off just the situation I went through, and I ended up making this album. Somebody I know was playing it for Nas, and we were trying to figure out what Nas’s role was going to be. At first, it just started with a phone conversation. Then it went to “Okay, do you want me to executive produce it?” Then it went to “I want to help you with this”. Then it went to “Oh, I’mma put a verse on this”.
Nas does so much. He’s like Fifty. He does so much stuff for me behind the scenes that no one knows. He makes phone calls. He connects dots. He’s putting together listening parties. He’s calling Eminem. He’s doing a lot of stuff that nobody really knows. Him and 50 Cent really play a big role in what’s going on with me right now. Like, they throw me so many ops. It’s crazy.
Evidently, 50 Cent has been involved with Skilla Baby’s new project. Given Fifty’s own history of surviving violence early in his career, his support for Skilla feels natural. He appeared in a cinematic album trailer that shows an older rapper acknowledging the younger artist’s skills and hunger. “You’ve got this disease… It’s called ambition”, Fifty says to Skilla in a scene that plays like a rooftop mafia negotiation.
Skilla captioned this trailer with “I just want to thank @50cent, @geffenrecords , my supporters, my team and everybody that helped on this project.
I’m nothing without the support of others.
Took me 2 years to create this body of work.
But it was worth the wait…”
The album titled The Price Of Fame is out today. With all the weight the older generation rappers put behind Skilla, this is the moment of truth when the music has to speak for itself.