Lil Skies Finds His Truth On Unbothered: 'I Always Feel The Pressure'

By Candace McDuffie


Lil Skies sonically resides in a realm where raw and unfiltered emotion rules. The 22-year-old emcee made noise with his 2018 major-label mixtape, Life of a Dark Rose, which, on the surface, came across as piece of the omnipresent emo rap that has permeated the music industry within the past five years. However upon further exploration, it is clear that the rapper place on Earth Kimetrius Foose — just like his mellifluous peers Lil Durk, Trippie Redd, and Lil Uzi Vert — is using his catalogue to process seemingly endless amounts of inner turmoil.


Songs like “Red Roses” and “Cloudy Skies” balance tender melodicism with cerebral unease; he’s obsessed with experiencing — and habitually expecting — worst-case scenarios. Whether it’s betrayal or abandonment from fraudulent companions and potential love interests, Life of a Dark Rose still manages to find aesthetics in solitude. His follow-up project, 2019’s Shelby, also examined these themes yet felt more upbeat and polished, an excellent he attributes to the dizzying nature of success.


“I was on the road a lot. I saw things I never got to see,” the rapper tells MTV News. “Seeing a bunch of fans and just going via motions. I was dealing with things you deal with any time people first get the fame, which is still true to this day.” Lil Skies’s second album, Unbothered, was released on January 22 keeps it up and continues to map out progression on his own terms. He sat down with us to discuss his songwriting process, how he deals with unyielding depression, and why artists shouldn’t habitually be believed role models.


MTV News: Your music really appeals to young listeners, nevertheless immediately after listening to Life of a Dark Rose, I realized that your lyrics actually are universal and don’t have an age quota. What do you suggest draws people to Lil Skies?


Lil Skies: I just keep it real on the songs, and I don’t be hiding nothing, even if it’s the ugly truth. I feel like my fans can sort of tell I put my all into the songs, maybe. I don’t know. I’m still attempting to identify that question myself. Any time If I was making those songs [from Life of a Dark Rose], that was my early stages. I was just doing what I was doing best: making my music, going with the flow, and hoping that the people fancied it. I just really kept dropping, and then it just got me where I'm at.


MTV News: To me, artists like you, Lil Uzi Vert, and Trippie Redd resemble a noticeable change in hip-hop. From the emotional lyrics discussing sadness and angst to the edgy aesthetic, do you suggest this kind of artistry was long overdue in rap?


Lil Skies: To me, I feel like hip-hop is different every period. Our generation, we don't know how to explain it because we're living in it. Even back then, once people could make hip-hop music, they didn’t even know how to explain it because that's what it was at the time. Whether it was selling CDs or wearing those big-ass gold chains or doing shit like that, that was their generation. It's just our generation. This is what we live, this is what we’re around, this is what our generation is going through. Most of them of our generation is dealing with depression — right now we’re just being more open about it in music. Yet in hip-hop people routinely were open about their struggles, it was just mentioned in different ways, you know what I’m saying?


MTV News: Whenever Life of a Dark Rose is compared to Shelby, you could hear the variation sonically. Shelby is a little bit refined, and I was wondering in case you felt any pressure because it was your major-label debut.


Lil Skies: I habitually feel the pressure. There’s habitually pressure. In case you care about what you do, you want it to be better than the last time. You desire to keep elevating and keep going. What I normally do is I just record, pick my best songs, and just roll with it. That’s what I did with Life of a Dark Rose, that’s what I did with Shelby. You get to be able to see where I'm at in my head and where I'm at in my life as soon as an album drops. A lot of people nowadays want artists to create the same music and so they want them to just do the same thing over and over again. I'm not attempting to do that.


MTV News: This generation of rappers have experienced excellent loss over the last few years. We’ve seen what happened with Lil Peep, with Mac Miller, with Juice WRLD. With a number of well known young artists dying from illegal substances, do you fear its toll on the industry?


Lil Skies: I do feel that way some days because we’re all living in this shit. Once you’re a rapper nowadays, this is what your life is most of them of the time: in a studio environment creating. There’s a lot of smoking marijuana, there’s a lot of contraband. You have your bad days so you have your good days. Obviously, you’re gonna think about that shit any time other folks are passing… you gotta know what you’re doing, pretty much. You gotta stay as safe as possible with whichever you’re doing. I don’t do hella illegal narcotics. I got my little certain things that I fuck with, though.


MTV News: Is that how you deal with your depression?


Lil Skies: I smoke a lot of marijuana. I get high. I self-medicate.


MTV News: With your visibility, a lot of young people look up to you. Do you believe that rappers should be perceived as role models?


Lil Skies: I get it, yet at the same time artists are people, also. We go through things, also. We’re still human. We’re leaders to them nevertheless we can’t habitually be. It can’t habitually be, “Oh he's doing this, and you also gotta do it, too.” No. I don't like to sit there and judge anybody doing anything because I don't know the full situation. You're not going to know this whole situation. So before you judge, attempt to help. I know we influence certain shit, nevertheless we gotta live our own life, also. It’s not on some I don’t care-type shit, yet I gotta do my own thing. I’m my own man. I’ve been living for a lot of people my whole life. Although all of my responsibilities are taken care of, so at this point, I can’t let certain shit get to me.


MTV News: Is that why your latest record is called Unbothered? You’re just at the point where you’re becoming indifferent to the pressures and expectations of fame?


Lil Skies: It’s a note to myself. It’s me telling myself don’t pay attention to the hate and don’t pay attention to all of the negative shit or whatever’s going on. Just stay focused, keep working, keep doing what you do. As long as you gave your best, that’s all that matters. With the album, I just want kids to know they should chase their dreams no matter what anybody tells you. That’s the largest thing.


MTV News: What were some of your preference songs to record for Unbothered?


Lil Skies: the initial track, “Fade Away.” “Sky High,” “Ok,” “Havin My Way,” “Dead Broke,” “On Sight.” Right now that I’m looking at the list, I fuck with them all [laughs].


MTV News: To those who aren’t as familiar with your music, what do you want them to take away from this project and from you as an artist?


Lil Skies: I just aspire to stimulate people to follow your dreams. There’s going to be a lot of people talking and there’s going to be a lot of people attempting to bring it down or whichever, yet just stay focused and keep working towards your dreams. Never let nobody tell you that you can't do something.