When I met Skooly, he was pretty heated about some clothing. He was doing an in-store appearance at some Complex.com-ass store in Denver, and he flatly refused to be compensated in anything bearing the store brand's logo. Jacket only, that jacket's the swaggiest thing in here! he said, referring to the one available item lacking a gaudy logo. This is making me not want none of it. He asked if I wanted anything, gesturing to a pair of socks with flames and the cover of Juvenile's 400 Degreez printed on them. I declined, a decision that has since kept me sleepless on several occasions.

Outside, the sheen of stardom fell away a little in the sunlight. I imagine that years (minutes) of interacting with streetwear boutique managers grows tiresome. Skooly, still young, has been in and around the Atlanta scene since debuting at 16 with Rich Kidz, a delightfully of-the-era sort of boy band whose members remain surprisingly visible (in addition to Skooly, Jose Guapo and Shad da God got their starts in the group). Since then, he's scored the odd hit but remained largely on the cusp, surely able to make a nice living but far from a true star. In conversation, he displays a world-weariness that's always sad to find in someone so young, but necessarily prevalent among those with years of experience in the rap machine. Conversely, he's clear-eyed about his goals and attacks genuine interests with an enthusiasm that's self-evidently authentic.

Skooly's got a heavy, heavy southern accent, so much so that during transcription I realized that he'd brought mine out as well. Here's his. There was also a very funny, extremely Vice dot com photo of this interview, but I'm quite pleased to announce that it seems to be lost to time.

What are your earliest musical memories?

Just rapping in the neighborhood? I started at like 14, playing around. One of my friends - actually, one of my first girlfriends that I was in love with - her grandmother had a studio that was in the basement. First place I recorded was there. Just recording though - to this day, none of that music has been heard. My first time recording with somebody hearing it and putting it out? I was 16 years old, in high school at Douglas High School. I was with Grand Hustle at T.I.’s studio, and the first song I ever did was Wassup. My homies did My Partna Dem, but I wasn’t at the studio - I had to leave, I was in school still. Wassup was my first song, and it went on the charts. The Top 100 charts, and that was our first song ever. I found out I could sing on that song [laughs]. And I found out I could rap, that I had a flow. I can’t say it was a given, but it was given to me by God. I know that.

When Rich Kidz was starting out, how did you figure out who you could trust? I imagine there were a lot of new people showing up all of a sudden.

To tell you the truth, I didn’t. I’ve never been good with the trust thing. I’m a Leo, I’ve always had that flaw in my life where I trust people easily. I’m kinda changing that now; I had to change that to get where I am now. Everything I do and talk about other than stuff like this is Omertà, that’s the code of silence my family has. I try to keep stuff as private as possible, but I want my fans to know me. They know enough about me, but I still want them to find out whatever they don’t know. I never want to hide anything from them. As for me in real life, in everyday life when we’re not doing this interview or when I’m not performing, I don’t want anybody in my business. I’m backwards.

So you want to be able to control…

Everything! I’m a bit of a selfish person, you dig what I’m saying?

I think it’s fair to want to be in control of what your fans see. Do you feel like your success makes it difficult to have a personal life?

Absolutely. It always comes into that part and makes things happen - weird things, bad things, wrong things, good things. You’re an entertainer, and there’s not many people that like the fact that you can entertain people on your own without a lot of help. I think it’s natural; you have people that dislike you, even if they don’t dislike you they don’t like what you’re doing, you dig? If they can’t do it, they don’t approve of it. If they can’t make it happen, if they can’t persuade someone like you can persuade someone, they’re mad. You always have to watch out for people like that in life.

What I do: rap, sing, entertain - it’s not a hobby. I know you hear people say it’s their hobby, but for me it’s different. It wasn’t an option for me either. I kind of had no choice. I found out something I was good at, that I could make money off of. We were broke, so I could feed my mother with this. That’s what I’m thinking: I could feed my mother, I could get my mama a home with this, I could put my mama somewhere where she don’t have to be stayin’ around. I can stay around, I can move around, I’m a young boy. I’m her son. But she’s my mother, you don’t want your mother having to move around with you. I could say this was a savior for me, but it wasn’t a hobby, wasn’t a thing to play around with for me. It was something that I loved, and something I was doing to take care of my mother, my sister, my whole household. I bought my mother a house when I was 16 years old. Cash. And she still in it.

I came from a good household. Dad had money all the time, Mom was the household. Taking care of Dad, me, and Sister. Ain’t no way in the world we not gonna eat, ain’t no way in the world ain’t no meat on our bones. Ain’t no way in the world ain’t nowhere to sleep, ain’t nowhere to lay our head. But Dad always made sure that Mama made sure, if you can understand what I’m saying. It went down like a trickle. I’m saying that to say that Dad had money a long time, but Dad didn’t always have it. Like everybody go through it, Dad went through it. But he stopped. He stopped doing what he was doing for me; it scared him because he seen it in his son. I couldn’t blame him, but I could because I wanted a lot of stuff. I could blame it on that, a little bit - we would’ve been more fortunate, I probably wouldn’t have went the path I went. I did a lot of crazy things, bad things before I started rapping. That’s not a factor right now. I’m in the business of leveling up.

What do you think people have that lets them level up when other people might not?

I don’t know to explain it to help other people, but it’s not a secret of me. I have idols, I have people I look up to in music. People I watch, every day. Some I know and some I don’t know. I take things from legends - Wayne is my idol and will never stop being my idol, Drake is my favorite artist. I take things from people I have a lot for, little things that I can add to my persona. To the people, I would say go for what you’re going after - it’s ok to jot and take pieces, but it’s not ok to take anyone’s whole swag. Look at you: I can say I would wear your shoes, but I wouldn’t take your whole outfit. I would look just like you. I wouldn’t wanna do that. But I can say bro had these cool shoes on, maybe I’ll try them lace-ups on. I don’t recommend anyone being like anyone, but you can’t come up without influences.

I’m interested in the strategy of advancing as an artist or entertainer. How much of your creative direction do you think can stay organic versus strategic? Does a project like Trench Gotti come about from pure creative collaboration?

I actually met Nard & B when I was 16. When I was with Tip, they were house producers for Grand Hustle. We did a lot of music when I was a kid, so when I got to this age and they saw me making my way by myself, they reached out. I appreciated them for that; there’s a lot of people that could’ve done the same thing, but they didn’t. And they still haven’t. It’s not a pretty game, it’s not a nice game. There are winners and losers.

Everyone in Atlanta seems to go back for years. How is it seeing such a tight scene blow up nationally?

It’s not something I ever imagined, but it’s not something I would’ve denied neither. I’m not gonna be around like he’s never gonna make it. Everybody gets a chance. But at the same time, it wasn’t whispering about oh, that boy right there… because you’re not in everybody’s business! If I see some talent, I’m going to address it. I don’t care who you is, if you bigger than me or smaller than me, I’m gonna tell you that’s cool, I like that. As for the scene in Atlanta, I’ve been here so long that it seems like it should make me feel a way seeing people that came after me blow up. But I can’t feel a way, that’s the youth. That’s who I was when I started. All I can do is keep working. It’s kinda cool that a lot of Atlanta rappers are just saturating the mainstream. Atlanta! And if they’re not from there, they’re based out of there because they came there specifically to work.

Do you believe that hard work is always rewarded in rap?

If you keep working hard enough, eventually it’s gonna pay off. Hard work beats talent. If I don’t know how to rap, but if I’m doing the 24/7 - after shows, all the time in the studio - that overrules someone who knows how to rap but isn’t doing as much work. Of course someone’s going to come out that’s bigger and better than you because he’s putting in more work, but if he can’t rap like you, if you’ve got that gift, you need to exercise it.

Who do you think of as your audience?

Women and kids. Females and children, that’s my base. Then the trap. The mothers. The mother hoods[laughs]. A lot of kids like my music and then they tell their parents, so the parents have to like it.

Do you think of yourself as a role model, or spend time thinking about how you might influence kids?

I wouldn’t call myself that, but everybody that knows me would. I don’t notice it, but I am. I’m an icon for children in Atlanta, and in the Southeast period. There’s a lot of stuff you do and you don’t realize that you’re promoting it to people. It’s me natural to smoke, it’s me natural to kick it and do what I do as a grown man. But I don’t blatantly promote drugs and cursing, flexing and women. I know that I’m influencing children, or somebody, and I’d never say that I want to be a bad influence on them. So it’s weird, never knowing how you’re going to influence a person. But I know I’ve done more good than bad. It still amazes me, going through apartment complexes and children run after me. I remember a little boy, like 7, I was going in my grandma’s house and he said yo Skooly! He done ran all the way up the parking lot, he was tired, and he said bro [panting], you the best rapper bro! That’s hard. It made me feel great.

Where’s the name Skooly come from?

Schoolboy. My first nickname was actually Schoolboy, my sister gave it to me before I went to high school. Eighth grade summer. We had uniforms, but I had a way of buying clothes to go with my uniform. I was never gonna wear a straight uniform, I didn’t care if I got in trouble. I’m gonna have on your shirt with your logo, but I ain’t gonna have on your khakis. Unless I like ‘em. I started wearing Polo as part of my uniform, and one Christmas I rocked the green sweater, Christmas colors, over the green, red, and blue button-down short-sleeve. No, it was long-sleeve. I’m actually lookin’ like a schoolboy, and my sis said Schoolboy, that need to be your name. So at this high school, I’d already been in the mix since eighth grade, going to high school basketball games, senior night, their proms. I’m pullin’ up and they think I go to another high school, but I ain’t lyin’. So then next year I show up and I’m Schoolboy. What’s your name bruh? I’m Schoolboy. And those same friends became The Rich Kidz. We were starting to do mixtapes, but there were a couple of people out that wanted the name Schoolboy. They thought it was ok to start calling me Skooly, so I ran with it. Now I’m Skooly, Schoolboy, Blacc John Gotti. The Dapper Don. Trench Gotti. Whatever [laughs].

What was your favorite subject in school?

Science. And public speaking, language arts. I love talking period, like you can tell because I love to rap and sing, but I love writing. The first time I learned to write a whole story on paper, I never looked back. Science has always been interesting to me; I always wanted to know the ins and outs of a woman, the ins and outs of us as men, and about the world period. I miss a lot of that. Just want to know how to do things, I like finding out things. I liked history, but it wasn’t my strong suit - I never felt like a lot of that stuff would help me, but I still like to find out things. I like watching CSI, trying to figure out things.

What draws you to fashion? What do you look for?

The most daring thing that they have. If they don’t have that, something that I don’t think anyone would have on or really wear. Something someone would call corny. I’m against the grain, I like doing me. I like wearing stuff that I like wearing; I don’t really care and I don’t really look for you to say oh, that’s cool. I want something that I like, I really don’t want you to like it.