Skyzoo - "Bed-Stuy Is Burning" from the 2021 album All the Brilliant Things on Mello.

New York has long been embedded in the work of rapper Skyzoo. Born Gregory Skyler Taylor in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, he cites his hometown as an influence, telling The Living Room, "There’s certain values and morals that come with the neighborhood and era that I grew up in. Those are important musically and just in life."

However, he laments the gentrification of his city on today's Song of the Day and the album it comes from, the new LP All The Brilliant Things. He explains in a press release:

With All The Brilliant Things, the idea was truly to try and tackle the realities of gentrification and this new era of cultural appropriation, commonly known as “culture vulturing”.

The way they intertwine with one another, parallel at times, and how us as the residents of our long-standing homes and creators of these cultures have been stripped of it, or at times let it happen, all for what we assumed was our best interest.

The irony of it all is, despite how it all makes us feel in hindsight, one would have to admit that the orchestration of it was truly brilliant. Brutal, and heinous, but somehow pretty brilliant. Hence the title of the album.

The cover art, illustrated by Matt Rockefeller, shows my 3 year-old-son and I on the corner of Fulton St. and Franklin Ave. in Brooklyn, and I’m showing him a condo being built in our neighborhood, a neighborhood that’s rapidly dying, explaining it to him and trying to make sense of it all.

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