ONE HIT WONDERLAND: "I Wish" by Skee-Lo

[Music] hello and welcome back to one hit Wonderland where we take a look at bands and artists known for only one song you know what everyone loves 90s hip-hop [Music] the best music in its best decade everyone agrees on this right here's the thing I remember the 90s and you'd be surprised how many people didn't talk about it that way at the time a lot of old schoolers hated the 90s because of all the gangster rap and not just because it was you know sexist and morally wrong and all that but also that it was so commercial that it crowded out all other forms of hip-hop according to these critics hip-hop used to have time for all sorts of different stories and now it was nothing but guns and drugs this is of course not entirely true in 1995 when the East Coast West Coast rivalry was dominating the industry a very different kind of rap song suddenly shot up the charts hello I wish I wasn't little bit taller I wish I was a baller I wish I had a girl who looked good I would call it it wasn't about money cars or women in fact it was specifically about the absence of all these things basketball I'm always laughing in some cases that song was of course I Wish by short King skilo not to be confused with celo another 1995 rapper who would go on to bigger and better things not so for skilo but for a brief moment in the mid 90s skilo stood tall at a time when the big rap hits were Shook Ones and Gangsta's Paradise skilo was out here standing up for The Losers of hip-hop he wished he was a little bit taller he wished he was a baller he wished he had a girl that looked good he would call her he wished he had a rabbit in a hat with a bat and a 6'4 Impala most of these wishes were understandable but no one at the time would have rapped about wishing to be a baller rather than actually being one now in the 80s this song wouldn't have seemed so out of place and if it had come out more recently that would make perfect sense in fact I'm half convinced that this is an early Childish Gambino song that went back in time 15 years somehow but in 1995 it was an anomaly a portrait of a completely different kind of hip-hop raps revenge of the nudes [Music] what if skeelo ever got to enjoy all the things he wanted we would never know just when it seemed like his success would make all his wishes come true he completely disappeared like off the face of the Earth he may have been short but his time in the spotlight was even shorter even for hip-hop a genre known for short careers the complete non-existence of skilo after 1995 is weird [Music] yourself I wish I knew what happened to the I wish I was a little bit taller guy well that's what I'm here for to fulfill that wish if you want the rabbit in the Hat with the bat I can't help you [Music] yo Once Upon a Time in South Central Los Angeles there was an establishment a health food store called The Good Life cafe they started having Open Mic nights in 1989 and by the early 90s it had become a hotbed of underground hip-hop the lady that ran the place would not allow cursing which sounds like it should produce some very lame music but that is not what happened instead a lot of really good alternative rap came from that scene Jurassic 5 Far Side Souls of Mischief and a lot of big names like Ice Cube and Fat Joe were known to visit from time to time it is in the good life Cafe circa 1993 or 94 that people first remember hearing of Antoine Roundtree better known as skilo kilo moved around a lot as a kid he got a taste of the original old school hip-hop after living in New York for a little bit eventually he settled in LA skilo is also quite short if Google is correct he's literally shorter than Too Short who is literally named Too Short also worth pointing out he was a kid like he might be 18 or younger in this clip just a year or so before he got famous now according to him he first got in with that crowd not as a rapper but as a producer making his own beats for other people to wrap over that was how he got his foot in the door and one day he found a record he liked a lot foreign this is spinning from Bernard Wright from the album nard not what I would have named that Bernard was a funk r b guy who was kind of bubbling under through the first half of the 80s and after his final single yo nard tank he seems to have quit to make Christian music but 19 year old skilo found this one little bit he liked if you combine that with a polymerone class I'm not clear what happened next but it must have happened very fast because before he knew it he had a record deal Forrest Gump huh I mean it is the mid 90s although that's definitely a different feather than Forrest Gump had it's an ostrich flyby [Applause] hello I wish I wasn't wish I was a boss I wish is entirely the product of skilo he made it himself alone in his bedroom as well as the entire album it's from but I mean people must have recognized immediately that this was something different like it sounded fine but it was about this little short guy rapping about driving a shitty car and getting no [ __ ] this guy must have been amazing like how good do you have to be at rapping to rap about not being a baller in 1995. someone must have seen something special in it because it's crazy that this was released the same year as the Friday soundtrack someone must have recognized that there was a void in rap music that skilo could fill it must be real most of us are not gangsters even if you're from the Mean Streets so for a lot of people I imagine this was the most relatable song on the radio being who Among Us has not had to say scat Skittles kabobble at some hood rats I tell them scats picky who are you to be choosy skilo like a lot of rappers talk about keeping it real but there's always a lot of posturing involved skilo did not do any of that he's the realist of all he had wishes and he shared them with the world [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay we might as well ask the question now and yes I know I'm not the first person to talk about this it was the preeminent question of 1995 music right after whether Alanis really dated Uncle Joey and of course that question is what's the deal with the rabbit in the Hat with the bat [Music] the car first beheaded rabbit was not really high on my list this song is at a long shelf life and the rabbit is always the first thing that comes up including when it showed up in a Super Bowl commercial 10 years ago what's up what's up and of course when Latter Day Family Guy got hold of it the repository of lazy pop culture punch lines Galo what you you need money barely even trying anymore not saying my jokes are any better I think the weirdest part of it is how it's sandwiched in between a bunch of normal requests and you're like yeah yeah [Music] wait the thing before last what was that but at last we can put the debate to rest these days we are fortunate enough to have genius.com to explain all your obscure hip-hop references so here we go according to this website a rabbit in a hat is a trick and trick is a slang term for a prostitute or just an easy girl a bat refers to the logo of Bacardi rum so skeelo's fun and catchy little rhyme is a creative way to say he wishes he had a sleazy girl who brought him some booze are you lying to me genius.com see I might have bought it without the Bacardi stuff but yeah this sounds like a prank written by Daryl from The Office you know things as Negroes say my guess is the rabbit in the Hat with the bat is just silly nonsense because you know hip-hop can be silly and fun sometimes remember that fun rap you can tell people did not remember that from reading his press coverage because they're all shocked that he's not cussing I mean look at this non-threatening hanging with the hurt boy the thing is this was not actually that unprecedented in the late 80s and early 90s this would have been a completely normal song to write [Music] there were plenty of songs about getting chunked or not getting the girl like Passing Me By by The Far Side which skilo actually named checks [Music] which I think goes to show how quickly raph's image had changed even a lot of the non-gangster stuff in the mid 90s was positioning itself as the opposite of Gangsta and skilo is not doing that he's just not in that conversation which is probably a good move and to show how good an idea was to avoid the comparison to G-funk here is the best forgotten Street mix of I wish I wish I was a little bit taller I wish I was a baller I wish I had a girl [Music] boy yeah I don't know maybe maybe doing this song up like Gin and Juice is is meant to be ironic I I don't know it just really does not work and you want to know what's really whack see I can't even get a date so what you think of that the thing is that for all the putting himself down and revealing all his shortcomings I've never seen anyone talk about this guy like he was a dork or embarrassing he clowns on himself in the video but he doesn't come off like a clown or a pitiful or a creepy incel I've definitely heard a lot of Comedy nerd rap about being a sad pathetic schmuck with no money and most of it feels really sweaty and desperate has that needy stand-up comic Vibe and skilo really does not wish I had my way because every day will be up Friday and you can even speed on the highway I would play Ghetto I think that's mostly because of the beat first and foremost this is a song you know like a real song with a fun beat that everyone can get down to [Music] right after this he went away with no explanation the obvious conclusion is that when you make a song about what a loser you are get treated like one is that what happened though okay soundtrack singles were all the rage at the time so his next single was also put on the soundtrack to Money Train the buddy cop movie from 95 that unfortunately is not bad boys but there you have it skilo was cool enough at one point to make a song for a Wesley Snipes movie that's that's something [Music] everybody top of the stairs is about how people get blinded in the race to get over and how we all have our reasons to try and reach the top but also we should be careful who we step over on the way [Music] sound like good advice especially from skilo to himself since this didn't really go anywhere made the bubbling under charts without hitting the hot 100. seems like he was quickly on his way back down the stairs yeah they got color TV and why did this flop I don't know I like it but I wish was something we didn't have in 1995. we've definitely had plenty of these wisdom of the street songs from people who spoke more authoritatively about it also you can't rap about being a virgin forever it might have just been that he had moved on to rapping about how he gets tons of girls now actually and when he doesn't sleep with them it's by choice [Music] I realize the AIDS era was different I'm still not sure that this is a winning message wave them around if you've been treated unfair maybe it was a problem with his image or the fact that he didn't curse caught up with him or maybe there were more Sinister forces afoot he also had another single holding on that did even worse than that one [Music] I don't know why people can catch on to this or any other song from the album and for the record skilo does not like being called a one in wonder he's like I was nominated for two Grammys including for the album so clearly I have more than one song ah I like the album there's a fun song at the end called The Burger Song everybody [Music] that's a good song I saw some reviews at the time complaining about the production which skilo did all himself I like the production but uh yeah I do have the Nostalgia goggles on I am going to like basically any hip-hop song that came out in 1995. but there is also one reason I haven't mentioned first Hero's disappearance and it's a big one it is as Q-tip called IT industry rule number 4080.80 skilo was on a tiny independent label called Sunshine records I guess it was a subsidiary of Scotty brothers that's not a hip-hop label that's Weird Al's labor they made Rocky soundtracks not hip-hop so it seems like they probably didn't promote him right but it got worse according to skilo Scotty Brothers tried to rip off his publishing and so he went for years and years in a legal dispute to try and hash that out he eventually walked away with all his money but it took forever to clear up and the way he puts it by 1996 he was already burned out on music by the time he made his second album his chance at a mainstream career was gone okay I try to be as accurate as I can here in my videos one thing I'm trying to do less is take the artist's word for it so I'm doing my best to double check but in this case I can't the only source for anything about skilo's life after 1996 is skeelo himself from a bunch of interviews he did around 2013. including all that stuff about his label disputes I cannot verify any of that that's not me saying he's lying that's me saying no one wrote a goddamn thing about this guy for 17 years or if they did it's been erased from the internet his IMDb bio says he did a little TV acting but he's not actually credited in anything says he did some DJing at MTV summer beach house in 96 couldn't find that says he was on I guess Sherman Hemsley had a UPN sitcom for one season couldn't find that either it says he was in Dangerous Minds of the TV show couldn't find that also there was a Dangerous Minds TV show when I did find his appearance on the Baywatch spin-off Baywatch Knights and here you can hear Lou Rawls tell him his music's no good yeah [Music] up there but uh throwing some money and some t-ball you know what I'm saying then come on back we'll talk about it that's funny also Lou Rawls was a character on Baywatch well what about his music well some six years after he had his first hit there was a second album in 2001. here you can see the video for his song at the mall where he tries to play off to his girl how some pigeon got his number our boy's a man now [Music] [Music] that's kind of funny it was funnier the year before when it was called it wasn't me it wasn't me the thing is though that I am not sure that this song or this album actually exists like it was recorded obviously I can see it there on YouTube and most the other tracks but literally no one has ever talked about it or mentioned it I found one interview where even though he made a video for it he claimed that he wasn't really involved with this album someone else made it from old demos and released it only in Germany again I have no way to verify and then you know my project the fresh ideas the qua you know I'm really excited about that anyway this is same in 2013 promoting his long delayed third or maybe second album fresh ideas much too smart for that I guess it was okay enough for a self-released album that obviously wasn't going to get any attention it got off to a real bad start though the game sometimes it gets dirty as coal miners what's wrong with the fans they suffer from Alzheimer's don't these [ __ ] know I'm the greatest of all timers one hit wonder no wonder you got a Shiner I didn't collect it more okay I have to say this the one hit wonder rappers because it's come up a few times on the show it can call it one hit wonder but I guess that means I'm one up yeah don't make songs about how you're not a one-hit wonder it never works other than that I don't know what he's been up to seems to be happily married he has an independent label and some kind of music distribution service and because I wish keeps popping up everywhere I'm sure that song's made a lot of money and if it's true that he kept a hold of his publishing he gets to keep all of it so I hope he got himself that Impala I don't know maybe he could have done a little bit better been a little bit taller been a baller [Applause] it's hard to say since he didn't really get a chance to follow it up but I think it's safe to say that he certainly made the most of his one hit I had a Time full of Gangsta [ __ ] he proved that hip-hop could belong to the wannabes and since we're basically a wash and sad boys and dorky comedy rappers for the last 10 years you could say that I wish was a real trendsetter and it's still better than everything that came after I mean who doesn't love I wish me I'm actually pretty tall and my car is pretty nice and I can afford to get my own rabbit in a hat with a bat which I have but still this song hits me deep in my soul ah yes ain't that fresh oh it sure is thank you skilo [Music] I wish I had a girl who looked good I would call her [Music]

Channel: Todd in the Shadows

Views: 305,825

Keywords: todd in the shadows, todd's pop song reviews, pop music review, i wish skee-lo review, skee-lo music review

Id: 8nzdyPqId-A

Length: 20min 41sec (1241 seconds)

Published: Fri May 19 2023