Skeet Taste, also known as Money Hungry Skeet and Hot Boy Thin-A-Thin, is a young rapper from West Belfort Street in Southwest Houston. The 25-year old’s songs are nihilistic sermons on street life and he evangelically delivers his messages by way of riddles to hook his listeners. For example, on “Heart Check” off of his latest album titled, T.R.A.P., the jokester teases, “the game ain’t a game/ at the same time/ watch how you play it.”
Skeet seamlessly pieces his clever non-sequitur lyrics together resulting in mosaic-like songs evoking graphic comic book images. On “Street Talk”, Skeet rhymes, “when the shooters came/ my mind frame was just get through the pain/ like I don’t know a thang/I know the game just like a boomerang/ hahaaa!” After recovering from being shot 7 times in 2015, he continues his notoriety, by delivering memoirs through unsettling proverbs on his records.
Skeet’s hymn is “no bullshit,” which he diligently hashtags on his social media, endearingly shouts on most of his songs, and naturally exudes in his disposition. Skeet told me:
‘I come from nothing. Some people are designer; you know how rappers got them back packs and chains? They have to get into character. I don’t need all that. I don’t need all that. My presence—you’ll know—when I walk in the building. I’m going to have a hole in my shoe, musty, and everything. And they are going to rock with me. I’ve had the same Gucci belt for about a year; I had to cut a new hole in it to keep it in there. Hahaha!’
Skeeta’s latest release is T.R.A.P. (Take Risk and Profit), which is his most refined project yet, charged with industrial, gloomy orchestra, and sedated beats, proceeding his 2017 album, Crack on Wax 2. I got the reserved rapper, who just inked a deal with Block Entertainment/RCA, to discuss his introduction into rapping, a few of his new songs, and Instagram’s effect on the streets.
Douglas: What does Skeet Taste mean?
Skeet Taste: A little bit of something. [For example] a skeet taste of something.
How’d you get into rapping?
I’ve been rapping my whole life: since first grade. I freestyled at the lunch table.
You’ve got a line on “No Lie” where you say, “I’ve been selling songs since middle school/ you can ask Mr. Lofton.” Who is Mr. Lofton?
He was the principal of Fondren Middle School.
You previously indicated that [Young] Jeezy was the Tupac of your generation. Do you think Jeezy had an effect on you growing up?
Yes. He made everybody want to trap or die.
You think music influences people?
It’s the biggest influence.
How are you trying to influence people?
Talk about it because I’ve been through it. But, I ain’t going to tell you to go do it.
There is one line on “Street Talk,” on your newest project, T.R.A.P., where you say, “I checked the murder rate, half the rappers [are] fake.”
They may be from anywhere, anywhere, and every other line is “shoot shoot bang bang,” but I look at their neighborhood and its Sesame Street. (Laughs)
On “G.O.A.T.”, you rap, “its I.G.’s (Instagram’s) fault we lost the streets.”
We can talk all day about that. Everything [that’s] going on in the streets is on the internet. The streets were like a secret society but it ain’t like that no more. It’s not supposed to be like that.
Why not?
Real people out [of] the streets don’t glorify it. They’re doing it because they have to. They’re looking for a way out. By rappers rapping about it and putting it on the internet, they make the kids want to go do it because the kids think it’s cool. They know about them stripes, but they don’t know about that life: those life sentences ‘n’ all that. It gets deep though, it gets real deep. Hahaha.
That’s why you don’t have guns in your videos.
Nope. I better not. See, when they talk about guns and all that, they put a target on themselves, because the gangstas [are] going see about that gangsta stuff, that they are talking about. So, they should avoid stuff by avoiding stuff.
That is such a Skeet line, “avoid stuff by avoiding stuff.”
You rap about some serious stuff. But you do mix in a lot of humor.
They say I’m funny. I don’t know. I don’t know. It be funny but it be true, though.
You wear Mortal Kombat and Disney’s The Lion King t-shirts, which is unique. What’s up with that?
Walmart. Five dollars. Hahaha. You can’t beat it.
I want to talk to you about a few concepts that continue to appear in your songs.
Love. You have several love songs.
I wouldn’t call them no loves songs. They are life experiences and past experiences I done been through.
Well, you’ve got a song called “Relationship Goals” What’s a relationship goal?
I don’t have one right now.
Do you have a girl friend?
Who, me? I might.
You bring up being a fighter a lot. What kind of fighter are you?
I am a lover, not a fighter. I defend myself, though. You know what I’m talking about? I ain’t looking for no problems, but I ain’t running from nothing.
You’ve got a bunch of songs about sticking to yourself, and being a loner.
Not being a loner, but sometimes you’ve got to isolate yourself.
Why is that?
To elevate, get a clear mind, and get right with the Lord.
What’s the end goal for Skeet Taste?
Change the world musically. Music controls the streets and the streets did a three sixty.
Explain that.
Whatever a rapper raps about is what will go on in the streets. You’ve got a sweater on. If a rapper puts that sweater on, everybody is going to go get it. I am going to bring something positive back to it. Don’t no boys want to be no basketball or football players. Hahaha. No girl wants to be a doctor no more. Everybody wants to be wants going on in this music.
I think that fact that you got shot seven times is an important point to discuss.
(Laughs). Yeah. I talk about it in my music. Go get that T.R.A.P. Take Risk and Profit, you know what I’m talking about? Residue on the Scale, Crumbs Make a Cake, Crack on Wax 1 and Crack on Wax 2, on any site you know.
Follow Skeet Taste on Instagram: hotboy_taste
