Happy 30th Anniversary to Mad Skillz’s debut album From Where???, originally released February 13, 1996.
I’m largely ignorant when it comes to Battle Rap in the 21st Century. It’s a thriving section of hip-hop culture with multiple competitive leagues. A friend recently linked me to a leaderboard for current battle rappers, and I recognized maybe five names out of fifty. But my own ignorance doesn’t negate the importance of emcees like Tay Roc, Vixxen, A. Ward, Tsu Surf, 40 Barrs, and Daylyt, just to name a few.
One thing I have noticed about many of the battle rappers who have established themselves from the mid ’00s on is that very few of them seem concerned with recording and releasing music. Some have a few mixtapes or a random single to their names. Others make an occasional guest appearance. But overall, most battle rappers have eschewed the traditional album as a way of establishing their legacies.
The competitive battle scene when I was growing up was a little different. There were indeed organized battles during hip-hop’s formative years. One of the main draws to the once legendary New Music Seminar, a music-oriented conference and festival that started in New York City, was the Emcee Battle for World Supremacy. It was host to many of the most famous rap battles of the 20th Century during its original incarnation from 1980 to 1995. However, the ultimate goal for many of the rappers who took part in these endeavors was different than many of their 21st century counterparts. The vast majority of the rappers getting down for their crown during the 20th century were seeking a record deal and hoped to eventually build a career releasing albums.
Donnie “Mad Skillz” Lewis first received global notoriety as a finalist in the 1993 Battle for World Supremacy. He was forged in the competitive rap cyphers that he participated in within clubs, outside venues, and across street corners in his city. The Richmond, Virginia-based emcee honed his, well, rap skills, and took to battling during the late 1980s and early 1990s. And though Supernatural reigned supreme in the 1993 finals, Skillz’s performance helped earn him a record deal with Atlantic/Big Beat.
History has shown that some Battle Rappers had a difficult time transitioning to recording full albums, or even songs. Though Supernatural signed to Elektra Records, his completed debut, Natural Disasters, was never officially released through the label. I’ve heard the finished product, and while it has its moments, Supernat’s improvisational skills as a freestyler and battle rapper don’t translate consistently on record, and it never really coalesces into a cohesive project.
On the other hand, Skillz’s From Where???, released 30 years ago, is a dope debut. He definitely remains true to his braggadocio and battle-oriented roots, but put together many very good—and even a few great—songs.
The album’s title harkens back to a time when a skills-oriented emcee from Virginia was considered an oddity. And at the time, as a “pure” lyrics-based emcee, Skillz didn’t have that many peers either inside or outside his region. He holds down an over hour-long project largely by himself, giving an often-spectacular performance over jazzy and soulful tracks provided by some of the most skilled beatmakers of the mid-1990s.
Listen to the Album:
Skillz quickly established his considerable verbal acuity with “The Nod Factor,” the initial offering from From Where??? The Beatnuts-produced track is one of the best singles of the mid-1990s, a timeless ode to making neck-snapping hip-hop music. The crew utilizes arguably the most creative flip of a sample from Johnny Guitar Watson’s “Superman Lover,” putting together an upbeat and midtempo track that’s ideal for Skillz to drop his unique metaphors. His boasts that “my shit'll have hard n****s in Soul Train lines” and disses of “Electric Company Spider Man emcees saying nothing” are some of my personal favorite one-liners of all time.
Skillz leans into his rep as a brash, punchline-heavy emcee for much of From Where??? He dispenses serious “Sucker emcee wanna die shit” across songs like “VA In the House,” “Tip of the Tongue,” “Tongues of the Next Shit,” and others. Many of his lines are clever and witty (“I’m shocking emcees like seeing their grandmother topless”), but occasionally he drops a few that have not aged well at all (“Snatching the man out your body like a homosexual”). Overall, he comfortably establishes himself as a potent lyricist with an outsized personality.
The production is strong throughout From Where??? Revered producer Jay Dee/J Dilla received some of his earliest album placements with the pair of songs “It’s Going Down” and “The Jam.” Jay Dee was still establishing his style at the time, as these tracks certainly sound influenced by his work with Q-Tip, but both possess some uniquely Dilla hallmarks. “It’s Going Down” features a hard-hitting, crisp drum track, while “The Jam” features an imaginative chop of Dorothy Ashby’s “Canto De Ossanha” paired with haunting vocals.
“All In It” is a smooth highlight of the album, with Skillz giving one of his best performances to a Shawn J. Period track, who hooks up jazzy keys and understated horns. The “cordless technician, ill breakbeat seeker” starts off venting about the preponderance of wannabe rap artists seeking fame in the mid-1990s, sneering, “I'm getting tired of DJ Nobody and MC New N***a.” Later he warns, “I take basslines in my veins, so refrain / From poppin’ anything that make me want to tear you out your frame.”
Skillz exhibits verbal versatility through From Where???, covering other subject matter aside from lyrical slaughter. “Doin’ Time In the Cypha” is the most interesting song on the album, as Skillz detail the dynamics and mechanics of a rhyme cypher. He captures the mind state and sensations of rhyming in front of your peers, capturing the feeling of the adrenaline high of delivering an amazing verse in their “secret garden.” “On the corners, without the mics,” he raps. “Inside the clubs, without the spotlight / Packed in tight like we were all doing a bid / Fuck where you're from, it's time to shoot your lyrics kid.”
Other emcees occasionally join Skillz throughout From Where??? Members of his crew, The SupaFriendz, join him on the aforementioned “Tongues of the Next Shit” and the lengthy posse cut “Unseen World.” Months later, the crew would release the independent 12” “Vowel Movement,” one of the better singles of 1996.
Skillz enlists a pair of heavy hitters on “Extra Abstract Skillz,” teaming with Large Professor/Extra P and Q-Tip the Abstract Poetic. Large Pro is the most impressive, pulling double duty by producing the funky track and leading off with the song’s strongest (and shortest) verse. While “writ[ing] scriptures that bust bright pictures,” he decrees that “a wack n***a rhyming kills a raw beat.”
Skillz has decidedly mixed success when putting together seemingly commercial friendly offerings. On “Get Ya Groove On,” he describes a weekend night at a local club, but producer Buckwild’s flip of Kool & The Gang’s “Summer Madness” is the song’s highlight. The album’s second single, the Clark Kent-produced “Move Ya Body” doesn’t quite gel either. In this case, Skillz’s sharp rhymes are a mismatch with the sample from Jeffrey Osbourne’s “Only Human.” Skillz’s rhymes are still strong as he raps, “You know the steeze, I'm bringing beats to they knees / Holacausting MCs and sees some G's ’fore I breeze.”
“Street Jams” similarly doesn’t fit with the album’s themes, as Skillz dishes out a lesson on how to survive engaging in dangerous extra-legal activity, but the song still works well enough. From Where??? ends on a conceptually ambitious note with the EZ Elpee-produced apocalyptic “Inherit the World.” Skillz envisions himself as a ferocious emcee who actually has to cope with solitude and lack of purpose after literally murdering the entire population of the planet with the strength of his rhymes.
Skillz has maintained a lengthy career, even though he doesn’t battle all that much anymore. In fact, his most prominent rhyme-related confrontation was an abbreviated beef with Shaquille O’Neal of all people during the mid ’00s. After leaving Big Beat/Atlantic, he dropped the “Mad” from his name and formally went by just Skillz. He eventually signed with Rawkus Records and released his sophomore project I Ain’t Mad No More (2002). These days, Skillz is best known for his annual “Rap Ups,” which he’s recorded on and off throughout the 21st century, recapping the year’s events.
In this current era where record deals seem meaningless and no one buys albums anymore, it likely won’t affect the legacy of the 21st Century battle rappers if they never bother to record a full-length album. That being said, three decades later, Skillz’s “Nod Factor” still keeps my neck moving whenever I listen to it on my iPhone or in my car. Times may have changed, but From Where??? is still an entertaining experience.
Listen: