Ski Mask The Slump God recently sat down for an interview with the Hot 97 ‘New at 2’ crew. The Broward County discussed a wide-range of topics including 90’s hip-hop and his fear of growing old. One of the most intriguing portions of the conversation came as Ski Mask discussed his time in juvy with XXXTentacion & the origin of their signature distorted sound, saying…

“I met X in juvenile jail & we was like, ‘Man we need an outlet to stop getting in trouble; all we like to to is hit licks and do hoodrat shit with out friends.’ So, long story short, we needed to find something to do. We was in there beating on the tables, and figured out each other could rap. From there, we just started helping each other out. If one of us got kicked out, we’d just take the bus far as fuck to be with each other.”

“X recorded my first song. He ordered the stuff off of eBay; it was a Snowball mic. It was the cheapest mic he could get, it sat on three prongs. It was basic, we used Audacity and a laptop. That’s how we got distorted music, we actually started making the distortion to the best of our advantage. People be like, ‘Oh you need to clean it more,’ but nah. We owning it. The fans love it, but not all my songs I do that because as an artist, I need to hit every genre.”

Who would’ve guessed that Ski Mask and XXXTentacion’s signature sound is due to their USB microphone? A lack of funds produced one of the most iconic sounds in modern hip-hop, once again proving that it’s not the equipment, it’s the person using it. Overwhelming creativity will always shine through, and you best believe that.