Sky'high is a strong, black woman surrounded by strong, black women.
"This is correct," she says. “My family’s full of strong, black women.”
But when asked if there are any strong men in her family, she replies: “My father and brothers’ father both passed away.”
It’s a typically tough part of Sky’high’s tale. The Sydney spitter raps about it on “Love Don’t Love Me”, one of the many glistening highlights on her uncompromising debut album, Forever Sky’high:
Raised in the gutta down by the sewer side
Step dad 'n’ real dad both died by suicide
But the rapper, who has Aboriginal, Fijian and Scottish blood pumping through her veins, is also typically stoic about their deaths. There are still strong men in her family.
“My two strong lil’ big brothers,” she says. “One is finishing his HSC this year on a scholarship with Riverview, something no one in my family but my mum has accomplished. He also plays for Souths SG Ball [South Sydney Rabbitohs Under 18s] with a manager and all.
“The other goes just as hard. He might be in and out of juvie, but he’s as loyal as they come and just scored a traineeship at Taronga Zoo!”
She laughs.
“Gotta love it!”
There’s a lot to love in life for Sky’high and her family right now. Just days after her album was released to critical acclaim from quarters as unlikely as Rupert Murdoch’s Australian newspaper, her mum landed a new job.
“It’s never too late,” Sky’high tweeted, linking to a picture of her mum in a Virgin Australia uniform. “No more pubs n clubs...finally! So proud of my Mum.”
Sky’high grew up with her mother, Christine, running strip clubs and pubs. Christine’s own mother worked as a go-go dancer in Sydney's Kings Cross.
Sky'high was raised in the housing commissions of Maroubra and Ultimo, not far from where Star City Casino - now known as "The Star" - looms like a crass colossus over the lives of those with far less, a microcosm of Australian inequality. The rapper name-checks the gambling Goliath in “Casino”, lamenting the lives lost inside.
It’s been repeatedly said that established hip hop label Elefant Traks has also taken a gamble in signing Sky’high, since, in its own words, “some people just won’t get it”. An example would be mainstream music reviewers, such as one who suggested Sky’high must have been “sky high” when she wrote “Casino”.
But the rapper has learnt to ignore the haters, not least from Kiwi producer P-Money, who made the music for most of her album. When asked what she gleaned from the chart-topping producer, she says: “A lot! How to overcome negativity first and foremost. P-Money is deadest one of the best people I’ve met in my life to date. Love that lad.”
Her first collaboration with the creative Kiwi was her breakthrough single “Look At Me Now”.
She hooked up with P-Money not so much because she wanted his style, but because he could actually work with her.
“It’s not that I couldn’t find the right sound here, it’s just one of them things, you know,” says the raw rapper.
“Heaps of people have approached me here, but I’m all about connecting with people. When I met P-Money, I liked his approach and his patience with me - and, of course, his work.”
P-Money’s work is pretty impressive. His hard-hitting, axe-riffing single “Stand Up/Not Many”, with Christchurch-born Samoan rapper Scribe, stayed at the top of New Zealand’s charts for three months. A more recent collaboration, the quirky “Everything”, with R&B singer Vince Harder, topped the New Zealand charts for three weeks and entered Britain’s top 20. P-Money has won multiple awards for his solo albums and turntable skills, yet it was he who approached the then-unsigned Sky’high after watching one of her self-released clips on the internet.
“He saw a YouTube video of me, then contacted Sam Dutch, my manager, who then got at me,” says Sky’high.
“From there we met up and then he gave some beats my way and asked if I could drop a couple of verses over them. He obviously liked what he heard over his work - thus the reason you are asking this question right now.”
On its release, “Look At Me Now” raised Sky’high to a whole new level. The accompanying, world-class video was directed by Auckland graffiti artist, author, graphic designer and photographer Askew One. The flickering, nightmarish, dark-filtered clip showed Sky’high spitting venomous lines like “I’m fly, you’re a maggot” as her bull mastiffs strained at the leash. It was an arresting arrival and a fresh feel for Aboriginal rap, sounding more like London grime than home-grown hip-hop.
"Yeah, I'm a fan of grime and southern rap," says Sky’high.
She claims to have no heroes, but cites grime godfather Wiley, Boy Better Know label Boss JME, West Indian grime queen Shystie and Birmingham female grime MC RoxXxan as “a good listen”.
As for Aboriginal music, she says: “The day I saw Wire MC perform 'B.L.A.C.K.’ live, I was hooked - I would’ve been 16 then. Stiff Gins go hard as well. Oh fuck, I remember I saw them when I was 12 and that was it.”
She also describes Murri brother-and-sister hip hop act The Last Kinection as “dope”, but when asked about female role models, she laughs. “I don’t know about heroes,” she says.
“But women I believe go hard would have to be Tina Turner, La Chat, Betty Davis - with a ‘Y’ not ‘E’.”
Sky’high also cites Bobbi Sykes as an influence.
“I don’t need to explain why,” she says dismissively.
Aboriginal poet, author and land rights activist Sykes started out as a striptease dancer in Kings Cross, the same line of work as Sky’high’s grandmother and mother.
“My momma told me this world was crazy,” sings Sky’high in the chorus to “Look At Me Now”.
“I am a product of my surroundings,” the rapper says of the song. But when asked to ruminate on the sex industry that has surrounded her throughout her life, she replies simply: “My thoughts? Two words - GET MONEY.”
On the 1995 dirty rap hit “Get Money”, Lil’ Kim spits:
Fuck bitches, get money
Fuck niggas, get money
Naw I ain’t gay, this aint no lesbo flow
Jus a lil’ somethin’ to let you motherfuckers know
Sky’high doesn’t play it so straight with her fans, preferring to tease them about such matters. One social media update read: “Headache of life! Sum1 kum rub it for me please :( preferably female, 5’9, long black hair, coke bottle waist n only speaks wen spoken to. :)”
A female fan, Tina Kenny, replied: “If I was ever to kiss a girl it would sooooooooo be you, my heart says YES but my pussy says NOOOOOOOO I need a cock! LOL look at what you do to straight girls, I mean fuck, I have never ever thought about that ever before, not even for a second, and now I feel I’m changing.”
Openly queer Indigenous rapper Kaylah Truth, with whom Sky’High recently recorded a yet-to-be released collaboration, chipped in: “Good one Sky! Confusing these straight girls ha ha haa.”
Sky’high cracked back: “NO... just confused. everyone, everywhere, confused confused confused.”
Another fan named Chris No-biggie wrote: “I’ll be your bitch. I’ll wear a dress just for u sky. Dead set. Chop my tool off and all.”
Sky’high shot back: “A bit of plastic surgery here n there n come see me... I don’t mind me a bit of tranny.”
Sky'high clearly enjoys screwing with people’s heads and having a good laugh while she’s at it.
But others find such matters a little more torturous, as feminist writer and researcher T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting points out in her book Pimps Up, Ho’s Down: Hip Hop’s Hold on Young Black Women: "Many artists... who are 'closeted’ or have one foot in and one foot out, have had to tolerate, oftentimes silently, slights and aspersions regarding their personhood and femininity. And so they must grit their teeth as they film, rap, sing and write about every aspect of their triumphs and disappointments except those relating to their sexual being. All the while heterosexual artists gloat or wail about theirs...
“Like the ‘Golden Age’ of Hollywood under the studio system where actors and actresses were often contractually discouraged from revealing their sexual orientation (Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich) or their marriages in order to maintain the illusion of their availability as partners or lovers (hence their box office draw) to the film-going public, many aspiring and mainstream hip-hop artists play it straight for the public."
In 2006, Kanye West told MTV: "Everyone in hip-hop discriminates against gay people."
Underground hip-hop artist Medusa has also weighed in on the subject in Curve magazine: “I think people avoid speaking on that [lesbianism] because they don’t want that to be the primary focus of who they are. Because that can dilute everything else.”
Sky’high is equally teasing when asked the meaning of her real name, Skh’ai Gerrey. The apostrophe, which she has carried over to her stage name, seems to reflect her part Fijian roots - but she won’t be drawn on its depth.
“You know what - it comes from my mum,” she says. “See, my mum liked the name Sky but not the spelling and she just put that together. Seriously, who would have thought?!”
Hype woman Emily Blake, who sweetens Sky’high’s studio sound and stage show with honey-dipped backing vocals, also has Pacific island roots.
“She’s half Tongan, half Aboriginal,” says Sky’high. “Emily Blake is one of a kind. We’ve known each other for over a decade now. Emily Blake is underrated as fuck, deserves way more recognition. One of the best voices in Australia, I reckon.”
Sky’high is at her most disarming when praising those she works with. It seems she scares the wits out of most people - one reviewer even called her “rough as guts” - yet on her album’s liner notes she comes across like the sweetest schoolgirl when thanking people.
“I can come across a bit intimidating or ‘weird’,” she says, laughing. “Some people can’t handle that - I’m unpredictable as fuck.”
But all the best rappers can take on multiple personalities, and Sky'high is no exception - her character is as multifaceted as her music. Forever Sky’high verges from the grungiest grime to the slickest soul and her lyrics swing from the giddiest highs to the depths of depravity. Some of her album’s brightest-burning moments are also some of its darkest, such as the daydreamy/nightmarish "Nuclear Love", a spiralling story of drug-fucked lovers.
When asked if the song reflects the way she sees her own life heading, she laughs.
“Hell no! 'Nuclear Love’ is dedicated to all them junky lovers out there. Way too many... They need to WAKE UP!”
That said, the spine-tingling video to her album’s rollicking, party-hard opener, “Let’s Just” features more drug references than a pharmacopeia.
Like the misguided “Casino” reviewer, anyone following her Twitter updates might also think Skh’ai spends most of her time high. So what, exactly, is her favourite drug and why?
“What the fuck?” she laughs. “Oi, MUSIC is my favourite drug! Just because.”
Anyone who gives her addictive album a spin will see plenty of reasons why.
