Skillibeng: ​“I’m the greatest dancehall artist of my era”

It’s a drab, rainy afternoon in New York. But when Skillibeng arrives at the photography studio in an industrial area of Brooklyn, he’s clearly psyched to be in town. Tomorrow he’ll perform at the NYC instalment of Rolling Loud, the blockbuster rap festival that’s grown into a globe-straddling franchise. Skilli, who is one of only two native Jamaicans on this year’s line-up, will play before juggernauts Nicki Minaj and Lil Uzi Vert.

​“This is New York,” he says with a smile. ​“It’s gonna be fire.”

Skillibeng is the hottest name in dancehall right now. Since 2019, the prolific 25-year-old has built a global following with a string of anthems – most recently his summer breakout Whap Whap – which have reverberated all the way from Kingston to a resurgent Notting Hill Carnival. Now, his US crossover is well underway. In May last year, Nicki Minaj hopped on a remix of Skilli’s hit Crocodile Teeth (the original track is currently sitting on 43 million YouTube views) and, a month before our interview, he appeared on DJ Khaled’s star-studded, chart-topping album God Did. Rolling Loud NYC is ready for him.

When Skilli storms the stage, the rattling drums, eerie synths and grumbling pianos of Whap Whap pulse through the car park and fans start running from every corner to catch a glimpse of the Jamaican superstar. The song’s hook is an onomatopoeic imitation of gunshots, which attracted criticism from Jamaica’s Prime Minister Andrew Holness. ​“We should not allow [violence] to define us,” he said during a Jamaica Labour Party conference in June. Obviously, the kids love it.

Skilli bounds across the stage and drops down to the front barrier like a headliner, playing call and response with the frenzied crowd through both Crocodile Teeth and his 2020 single Badman. By the time he’s demanding the crowd ​“make some bomboclatt noise!” he barely needs to say another word. A group of teens behind me start swaying back and forth in a circle, laughing as they start what might be the most friendly mosh pit ever.

Born Emwah Warmington and raised in Lyssons, in the southeastern end of Jamaica, Skilli was brought up by what he describes as a stable family of ​“business people” who lived right by the postcard-perfect beauty of the beach. ​“It’s a lot of sunshine, a lot of water,” he says of Lyssons. ​“Everybody there is more connected to the natural aspects of life. That’s kinda how I grew up: country-style.”

In his teens, Skillibeng fell in love with the chest-rattling bass of Jamaican soundclashes. At these events, rival sound system crews would compete for the crowd’s roaring approval with their own tinnitus- inducing speaker stacks. Deejays would often play the music of two artists back and forth before the people picked a winner. Here, Skilli found a musical hero in Vybz Kartel, the biggest dancehall star of the era and an artist who continues to release music despite serving life for the murder of an associate.

“Vybz Kartel could not only deliver lyrics, he could put together a good sound, specifically singing,” Skilli says. ​“He was on key, on point, a big voice with lots of range.”

Skillibeng loved the way Kartel merged rap and dancehall in his sound. So, when he began making his own music in high school, he copied and covered his idol extensively. As Skilli’s style became more distinct – his voice is husky but high-pitched, as though he’s just inhaled from a helium balloon – he took his own stab at the Kartel method, incorporating the vocal tics of US rappers such as Young Thug into a hybrid trap-dancehall style.

“Hip-hop has so many different sounds,” he says, admiringly. ​“How they said their words, their flows, everything.”

Skilli isn’t the first dancehall artist to incorporate aspects of hip-hop into his music – genre staples such as Kartel, Sean Paul and Popcaan have all crossed over with similar aspirations. But he’s certainly a pioneer in terms of fusing it with the musical and lyrical motifs of modern trap.

A sharp contrast to the wholesome vibes of traditional reggae, trap-dancehall has drawn scorn in Jamaica, where more established artists such as Beenie Man and Bounty Killer have accused it of ​“diluting” the genre’s traditional sound, and others have pointed to the violent imagery of its lyrics (“Just buy a K and it have it pon sumadi body drop,” went Skilli’s AK-47-referencing Rocket Launcher, released last year).

This moral panic is not just toothless complaining by elder statesmen or the media, either: in October, the country’s broadcasting regulatory authority banned music and TV shows which ​“glorifies illegal activity” and cut back on material that, as the government said: “…could give the wrong impression that criminality is an accepted feature of Jamaican culture and society”.

Skilli snickers at me and his eyes sharpen when I bring up trap-dancehall, a term he’s previously been dismissive of. ​“Just because these tiny little changes are being made, it doesn’t mean it’s not dancehall. It’s an evolution of the music.”

Music has always been a part of Skilli’s life. His dad played reggae, dancehall and techno around the house and, by the time he had left high school, Skilli was recording his own stuff while working as a manager at his father’s grocery store. Then a near-death experience changed the course of his life. While driving to Kingston to link up with his music manager, he was in a crash that flipped his car. As soon as he was back on his feet, he knew he had to pack in the nine-to-five.

“Music was always easier for me because of the fun I had doing it,” he says, though he is still rattled by the memory of the crash. ​“It was an easy decision. I realised I had the talent.”

Skillibeng’s big breakthrough came in 2019, when his track Brik Pan Brik exploded in Jamaica. The song’s money-chasing subject matter persuaded party-goers to throw cash at DJs in exchange for playing the song again (or a pull-up, as it’s known in dancehall culture), then post videos of the antics on social media. The hype continued during lockdowns, with Skilli dropping regular standalone singles as well as his 35-track debut project The Prodigy in December 2020 (a raunchy 21-song sequel called the Ladies Only Edition dropped in May 2021).

Now that he’d blown up in Jamaica, Skilli set his sights on the US. In 2021, he collaborated with New York rapper Rich the Kid (on Real Boss) and Young MA (on Money Counter), before receiving a major boost when Nicki Minaj rapped on the remix of Crocodile Teeth and placed it on a re-released version of her legendary mixtape Beam Me Up Scotty in May.

Then DJ Khaled called him up for the God Did track These Streets Know My Name. With the track also featuring reggae and dancehall legends Buju Banton, Bounty Killer and Capleton, the collab suggested a softening of tensions between the old and new schools of Jamaican music. ​“Trap is trying to make its mark,” said Bounty Killer during a Jamaican TV interview in April. ​“Let it do its thing.”

Testament to the surging international excitement, in 2022 Skillibeng’s tour schedule went global, playing shows in Guyana, across the US and in Canada for the first time.

His first London show at Kentish Town Forum in the spring was an instant sell out, and he came back for Wireless during the summer. A plan to perform at Notting Hill Carnival in August didn’t work out in the end, but his biggest hits were constantly blared from massive sound systems across the weekend.

“A lot of places [where I perform], I’ve never even heard of before, and when I go there, I have fans,” he says. He’s eager to tell me about one such fan who attended his first LA show: ​“After I performed, Wizkid told me he liked my vocal control and my vocal range,” Skilli says. ​“I’m a big Wizkid fan too, so that meant a lot.”

As we finish up the interview, THE FACE’s stylist guides Skilli through some clothing options for his photoshoot: there are Stone Island jackets, a green Vanson Leathers racing outfit from Supreme’s recent collaboration with Yohji Yamamoto and an Off-White hoodie. As Skilli slides it on, we’re told that it’s one of the last designs that Virgil Abloh created before his death. ​“Virgil designed this?” he asked shortly after, a crescent- shaped grin spreading across his face. He keeps the hoodie and wears it proudly during his set at Rolling Loud.

Stardom looks good on him. ​“I’m the greatest dancehall artist of my era,” he says, steely-eyed and unphased. ​“That’s what I am. I’m just doing my job. And I’m good at my job.”

MAKE-UP Kuma PHOTOGRAPHER’S ASSISTANT Zach Helper STYLIST’S ASSISTANTS Spencer Singer and Jonas Harris PRODUCTION Rosanna Gouldman and Adam Lilley