Richmond rapper writes when others can't

By Malcolm Venable

The Virginian-Pilot

Ghostwriting is one of hip-hop's worst-kept secrets, a shadowy profession where one rapper writes rhymes for another. When major rap stars have too little time or a bad case of writer's block, first they check to make sure no one is looking, and then, very often, they call Virginia rapper Skillz.

While he cannot freely discuss his client list, the Richmond-based rapper is "rumored" to have written for people including Diddy, Nas, Will Smith, Foxy Brown and Jermaine Dupri. Skillz's own material has made him well-known within a tight circle of hip-hop purists and Internet rap geeks. He is probably most famous for appearing on Aaliyah and Timbaland's "Are You That Somebody" in 1998 and delivering a clever "Wrap-Up," since 2002, cataloging the year's major political and pop culture events on the eve of the calendar change. He tours prolifically, sometimes alongside The Roots.

Yet as Skillz prepares to release his fifth solo album, "Million Dollar Backpacker," on Tuesday, will this underground phenom and Virginia celebrity finally become a national star?

"I have nothing to prove," says Skillz, who says he's in Tidewater as often as twice a week. When here, he is working with local producers and Illusive Media, the Virginia Beach-based design firm that often does his visual work, including a video he filmed at Mount Trashmore. "I love music. I never thought I would make it this far."

His work takes him all over the country and to places as exotic as Dubai, but he says he loves Virginia and has no intentions of throwing his home state under a bus in search of greater fame.

"It keeps me grounded. There are things I can't get anywhere else, like peace of mind. You can be from here and stay here and make it. Anything I can do anywhere else, I can do here."

Skillz, nee Shaquan Lewis, was born in Detroit but moved to Richmond as a kid. Calling himself Mad Skillz, he was known for his impressive ability to freestyle (rhyming off the top of his head), and he won a national contest and then a record deal in 1992 on Atlantic Records. His 1996 debut was titled "From Where??" - a nod to Virginia's relative rap obscurity at the time. It didn't sell well, perhaps partly because Skillz lacks any easily marketable caricature (thug, lethario, baller, etc.) Still, he became a Virginia hero and linked with then-rising stars Missy Elliott and Timbaland, both from Hampton Roads. He appeared on an album with Timbaland and even made plans to join Tim's label, but that fell through.

How much contact has he had with them recently? "None," he says. It is a corporate, business answer betraying no ghost of emotion one way or the other. "I'm in a different circle. Skillz is doing Skillz."

By 2000, he had dropped the "Mad" prefix, and his ghostwriting career was flourishing. He released a song on the topic, "Ghostwriter," about the ironies and rigors of the job. By then Skillz was a hip-hop hero online and in the press, and in 2002 he released "I Ain't Mad No More" on Rawkus Records, the thinking man's hip-hop label that was the one-time home of Mos Def. Rawkus folded though, and Skillz has since been pushing music through underground methods, which now of course include the Internet and his new label home, Koch Records.

Has it been frustrating creating material for big stars while he remained mostly anonymous?

"Not at all. Everything happens for a reason. I feel my ups and downs just show that I'm human. Hip-hop doesn't owe me.... A lot of people feel like they get in the game and are supposed to become a mega star. Sometimes it's timing - sometimes it's the right record."

He has no delusions of grandeur. "I don't fee like I've hit." So he gets up and goes to work every day, just like everybody else.

"Million Dollar Backpack" - a play on both the "backpack rap" label given to anti-gangsta, underground rappers as well as his quietly earned fortune - is his most star-studded. Common guest stars, and there's production by The Roots' band leader,uestlove. This could be the one that shoots him into the big league, but then again it couldn't. Either way, Skillz will eat a good meal, and probably in Virginia.

"I'm always in a Virginia state of mind," says the rapper, who is also working on an indie film that he is, true to character, not saying too much about right now.

"I feel like if I was someone else, I would have had a harder time with it all. Virginia helped me. If I wasn't from here I would just be another New York rapper that could battle-rap really well. There is a lot of untapped talent here. I'm happy that I can show people a way."

Malcolm Venable, (757) 446-2662, malcolm.venable@pilotonline.com