Big news from late 2011: Local kid-hop artist Secret Agent 23 Skidoo learned that he's featured on a Grammy-nominated album. And while that doesn't mean that Skidoo will take home a statuette should that album win, the nod "will look nice on my website, and may perk up some ears when we push Make Believers into the world," he says. It would "add more freaky snowflakes into the snowballing juggernaut of my insanely random kid-hop global takeover."
Speaking of Make Beliver, that's the upcoming album in the works for Skidoo (and the next step in the aforementioned kid hop global takeover). "I've decided to get off the label and go independent again, so I got all my albums back and will begin my own indie label, Underground Playground, with the release of Make Believers. It's my third family album, my seventh solo album and the 13th album I've been a big part of," says Skidoo.
He's already putting the finishing touches on Make Believers, about which he tells Xpress, "As with any album I'm currently making, I feel like this is my best thing yet, and it is a weird, wild, genre-bending gumbo. Fresh hip-hop blended with dancehall, garage rock, 50s-style ballads, swing, salsa and lots of nasty funk." Local contributions come from Mad Tea, The Secret B-Sides, Firecracker Jazz Band and Yo Mama's Big Fat Booty Band. Plus, there's a collaboration with cellist Ben Sollee and Joe Buck (the artist who did the De La Soul is Dead cover) is doing the art.
Skidoo is also expanding into books, TV and more — so what if this year actually does mark the end of times? "I figure the 2012 Karmageddon will take one of two shapes, and either way I'm ready," says Skidoo. "Either the poles will shift and end human life and we will all turn to galaxy roaming energy spirits, in which case all my hitchhiking and freestyling experience will leave me psychically limber for the transmogrification, or human civilization will be reduced to post-apocalyptic conditions, in which case I will become, to quote Liz Lemon, 'a wandering bard.'"
"Or," he adds, "we'll just have to reset the clocks."
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