Album: Skyzoo & The Other Guys – The Mind Of A Saint
For the better part of two decades, Skyzoo has built a reputation as one of hip-hop’s most gifted writers, using creative concepts and world-building to tell stories rooted in the Brooklyn neighbourhood where he grew up and match wits with some of rap’s best. But on The Mind of a Saint, he draws inspiration from a storyteller of the highest repute: late filmmaker John Singleton. The album is a hyper-conceptual effort by Skyzoo to rap from the perspective of drug kingpin Franklin Saint, the main character in Snowfall, Singleton’s hit series about the rise of crack in 1980s Los Angeles. And as deftly as he adopts the character, he never loses sight of his own identity: The album is packed with the same sort of double-take metaphors, multisyllabic rhyme assaults and nuanced narration that have earned Skyzoo his rep. The strongest points on The Mind of a Saint come in Skyzoo’s attention to detail: disciplined punch lines avoid modern references to cite ’80s-specific celebs like Mike Tyson and former Lakers owner Jerry Buss, and Skyzoo breaks down the show’s perspectives and themes instead of simply reliving its key scenes. “Panthers & Powder” illustrates how Franklin’s path as a street pharmacist is informed by his father’s as a community activist, “Bodies” dives into his development as a cold-blooded killer and “Apologies in Order” sees him lamenting how the poison he sells ruined the life of the woman he loves. While JAY-Z used the film American Gangster as inspiration to reflect on his own experiences in the drug game, Skyzoo taps into Singleton’s series as a challenge to try on a new persona altogether—and it’s as convincing as anything he’s ever done.