The High Note Ep. 1: Lord Sko
Check out the entire live studio performance on YouTube and TikTok.
Lord Sko is not like any young musician today. Although he may be only 20 years old, his timeless ‘90s flow and cadence will take you back in time. At the same time, he takes that old-school sound and puts his own twist on it. Lord Sko is on the rise, exclusively releasing music with Roc Nation Distribution—a well-deserved deal for a New York native who consistently pays homage to his home and the origin city of hip-hop.
He fell in love with hip-hop and its streetwear style in middle school, and little did he know that he’d be collaborating with one of his longtime inspirations less than ten years later: Curren$y, on his newest track, “Understand.” His upcoming album, PIFF, is slated for release early this year and includes a slew of iconic features.
I met up with Lord Sko, the Washington Heights native, in unironically one of his most frequented ever-changing neighborhoods, Bushwick. We caught up in Pirate Studios, where his nostalgia took over because he recorded much of his early work at the Pirate Studios in Gowanus. In addition to our conversation about what’s next for Lord Sko, he hopped in the booth and performed his newest track, “Stubborn,” produced by Arlo Walker, and “Lesson Learned,” produced by Statik Selektah.
You recently opened for G-Eazy. What was that like, and how did that gig come about?
That shit was cool. Brooklyn Paramount is a beautiful venue that is super cool. They just reopened it not too long ago. G is my dude. I met him at Hidden Tiger on 13th and (Avenue) A a minute ago. He said he was fucking with me. Randomly, I saw him in the Lower (East Side) with a bunch of my friends, and he was like, ‘Yo! My tour agent literally asked me today if I wanted to go on tour at the New York shows. I’m fucking with you.’ He’s the man—a good dude.
Tell me about the creative process behind your recent single, “Stubborn.”
Smoking weed, doing drugs, and fucking rapping really well.
Is that how you come up with most of your lyrics?
Yeah. For the most part. You just gotta burst it all together.
Do all of your lyrics come from experiences, or are they also scenarios in your head?
It’s like a world, right? A lot of it is lived shit. I’ll see something or something will happen to me, and I’ll write that shit down, like, ‘Oh, I gotta say something about this.’ But it also might not just be happening to me. It might’ve happened to my friend, or I heard a story about it from someone I know. It’s not just a made-up scenario, but sometimes you gotta add a sprinkle of flavor to make it theatrical and cinematic. This shit all comes from real-life motherfuckers. New York is a crazy place. Growing up here is even crazier, and doing the shit that we do here is even crazier. That’s how shit gets crazy here.
How has growing up in Washington Heights impacted how you make music, as well as how you look at life?
I see shit for what it is. I feel like the Heights is a neighborhood where, despite many changes, it’s not changing at as rapid a rate. A lot of stuff has been there for a very long time. Most of the people who live there have a history and family there. It’s all more community-oriented. I feel like it’s given me an appreciation for—I don’t want to say keeping shit the way it is—but if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
I agree. Your songs also have a very ‘90s flow and cadence. Who or what inspires that?
A lot of people. I’m a big fan of Nas, MF Doom, Jay-Z, Biggie, Mobb Deep, and Sean Price. I feel like that’s always been more of what I gravitated towards because I’m a visual thinker. I try to say stuff in my lyrics that you can visualize really well. When I say something, I try to make it imaginative.
When you say you’re a visual thinker, does that show in your music videos?
I think so. I’m very particular about how I want shit to look. But at the same time, I feel like my videos are more of a reflection of just what we do. You have to capture magic like that on a whim. I’ve been doing more structured, more treatment-oriented videos, but a lot of my videos are what I might see on a day-to-day basis—or what you might see through us.
When it comes to your beats, production, and music videos, do you do a lot of it yourself, or do you have a team?
My first two albums were a little more involved on the boards and whatnot in terms of finding samples and stuff. With this next album, I have a big, big team of producers. I was just picking, choosing, and curating the sound, which is a different process than being more involved. There were some songs on this record that I did have a hand in in terms of producing, but I mainly wanted to get some other hands involved.
Are there any sounds or genres you want to experiment with, or do you want to continue with your signature sound?
Plenty of them. I feel like my sound is something that allows space for expansion. I can rap on any type of music. If it’s in 4-4, I can rap on it. Even if it’s not in 4-4, I can rap on it. If there’s a guitar in one of my songs, does it become a rock song? If there’s a saxophone on it, is it a jazz song? If there’s a synth, is it synth-wave? I could put an R&B singer on my song, but does that make it an R&B song? There are a lot of different ways to experiment sonically. If there are trap drums in the song, then it’s not a boom-bap song. I want to do more shit, like have live bands and whatnot—definitely experiment more melodically.
So, you want to keep genre-bending with no labels?
Yeah, everyone knows what it lends itself to. I don’t want to take it so far away from hip-hop in a way that’s going to scare you away, but you’re going to hear it a little differently.
Who are some artists you want to work with?
There are a lot of folks. I definitely want to collaborate with Joey Bada$$. I saw him the other night—it’s always cool with him. Westside Gunn is another one of my favorites. Roc Marciano, Danny Brown, and G Herbo would be dope. I like collaborating with people. I think that part is fun to me. If you listen to these people and they inspire you one way or another, then you get to a point where you could be making tracks with them. It’s a really good thing for artists to be doing, especially when you can build those relationships organically. It’s not necessarily like, ‘Yo, here’s a couple thousand bucks.’ It’s not transactional; it makes sense. With that being said, you gotta keep building those relationships and putting your face in the right places.
What can we expect from Lord Sko in the near future?
A whole lot. My new single, ‘Understand,’ featuring Curren$y, is dropping on January 31st. My album Piff is officially dropping on March 24th and has some heavyweights in hip-hop. We’re also just doing regular shit and keeping it real.
