Apollo Brow & Skyzoo
Luxury Tax (released September 25, 2026)
Here’s a bit of Soul In Stereo trivia you probably wouldn’t have guess: If I asked you to name my favorite projects of the 2010s what would you select?
If you picked Nas’ Life is Good or Big KRIT’s Return of 4eva or J. Cole’s Friday Night Lights, or anything Janelle Monae,I’d say you are a scholar and a gentleman/woman.
If you named anything Kanye after 2010, I’d tell you to seek God. If you named anything from Future, I’d tell you to seek therapy. And sign him up for a session too.
But if you picked Apollo Brown & Skyzoo’s The Easy Truth, then you truly know my heart.
If you know my tastes and style, it’s a no-brainer. Apollo Brown’s production style is everything that shaped my formative years of hip-hop – gritty, hard-hitting and layered with a dash of soul to make every track feel like a living testimony. And then they’re Skyzoo, one of the hardest working – and criminally underrated – MCs in the game. The man has dropped a project practically every year since 2006 – often multiple times!
Y’all keep asking why I haven’t ranked Skyzoo’s discography yet and the answer is simple – it would take six months. I do my thing, but my work ethic isn’t nearly as insane as Sky’s.
Skyzoo has found incredible chemistry with an array of producers – Illmind, 9th Wonder, Pete Rock among them – but there’s something seamless about his collabs with Apollo Brown. The production is relentless, the bars are brazenly honest.
It just feels authentic.
And so the question remains: Can Luxury Tax – the second bite of the apple – live up to the flavor of the first?
Yes. Resoundingly so.
The first words Sky greets us with on the album’s first proper song, “Abundance” are “treat this like we’re riding for the first time.” Apollo then unleashes his brand of boom-bap brilliance and Sky blacks out: “attack of the baldhead, Boris Kodjoe features/ Cause me getting like Fredro Starr brought the Moesha’s.”
Yeah, dem boys back.
As expected, Luxury Tax’s production is, well, luxurious. Tracks like “Detours” blend atmospheric vibes with boom-bap sensibilities. As Sky says on “God Given,” call ‘em “cornerstore symphonies.”
“Table Manners” is laced with soulful vocals, while “Under the Lights” takes things even further, elevating the background vocals to the levels of an angelic choir. Apollo event takes us back to the mid-00s with a speedy soul sample on “No Discount,” making me long for the days of chipmunk R&B on my radio. And he has the audacity to BRING OUT THE HORNS for “Scrape the Bowl,” which means I’m obligated to add an extra star to the review score. Dems the rules.
But these excellent soundscapes would ring hollow if Sky didn’t bring the goods, and, as expected, he goes hard. His brilliance as a MC is the way he wraps street metaphors around everyday issues, or as he says on “Rose Tinted:” “I used brick talk to give y’all critical race theory.”
“Learned Behavior” turns lived experiences into life lessons: “The nickel bag was aqua blue, my Nautica aqua green/Only thing I followed was being told not to follow leads.” Meanwhile, the story of “Keep It Close” unravels in an almost cinematic frames, with Sky detailing why giving those you love space and distance isn’t always what the heart wants.
However, the album’s crowning moment is easily “Hear Me Out,” a track laced with keys that bear both soothing and sinister undertones while Sky details how he went from the corner to the crown:
Taught to abide by what we raised on
Says a lot why we don’t ride around to the same songs
I’m a Clue tape graduate, I rap like I’m shooting from past tense
40 something with 40-something 2K badges
But the track that likely will get the most buzz is “The Blind Spot,” which links Sky with Blu and Elzhi for a blistering array of lyrical mastery. Sky’s wordplay is bonkers as usual:
My résumé, double entendres like if the letter “A”
Was turned on its side and you pronounced it open wide
There I go again, being the symbol of what I always been
What he is, class, is greater than you.
Blu uses the space to remind us why he’s chronically underrated:
I can’t do the mumble rap, I can’t rock the coke flow
I came from the Black Stars, the De La’s, the cold flow
I know folks forgot about me, but I drop heat nonstop
You probably didn’t see me ’cause the industry keeps me in their blind spot
And then Elzhi wraps things up by unleashing a barrage of “I/eye” bars that has to be heard to be believed:
It’s eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, we don’t see eye-to-eye
I’ll put your body of work in ICU
If I were off an IPA like an Irish holiday
Comparison is the thief of joy, after all, but it’s only natural to compare Luxury Tax to The Easy Truth. When I hear those strings on the album closer “The Rearview,” I can’t help but the think of the countless times similar strings gave me legit chills on “A Couple Dollars” from the previous project. While the two albums inevitably will be compared, Luxury Tax undoubtedly can stand on its own. Skyzoo and Apollo Brown have mastered the most important dynamics in any rapper/producer partnership – chemistry and trust.
Their vision is uniform and the results speak for themselves.
And I might have a new favorite album for the 2020s.
Best tracks: “Hear Me Out,” “The Blind Spot,” “Keep It Close”
4 stars out of 5
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