Ski Mask and Xxxtentacion Squash Beef
How "Take a Pace Back" Became a Mosh Pit Canticle
1 of the most important songs of the SoundCloud rap era was recorded side by side to two bunk beds at a porn star's house in Florida.
It was early 2016, and Ski Mask the Slump God'south rap career hadn't taken off all the same. He had bigger things to worry about than music, though. He didn't fifty-fifty take a place to live.
"My life was crazy back and so," Ski Mask remembers. "Me and Jahseh [XXXTentacion] were trying to figure out our lives and where we were going to live. We were on the streets, basically, and we had to figure something out. So nosotros found somebody named Bruno and lived with him in Miami."
The Bruno he'due south referring to is Bruno Dickemz, a porn star who temporarily managed Ski Mask and XXXTentacion in 2016.
"Bruno does porn," says producer Ronny J, who was close with Ski Mask and 10 during their come-up. "He had the girls and the house for us to come over and make music. The business firm had a stripper pole in there and all these creepy ass paintings. It had really crazy energy."
Soon afterward moving into Bruno's house, Ski Mask and X invited Ronny J over to make music. As the producer was working on a vanquish, 10 jumped in before he could finish and offered some input.
"I started the beat and X was just like, 'Yo bro, don't put a melody in this beat. Just get in bass and a clap,'" Ronny J recalls. "I was like, 'OK. Are you sure?' That was way before I fifty-fifty knew well-nigh making beats without a tune. So I will give X that credit, bro. I only made the beat similar that because that'due south how he wanted it, and I believed in information technology."
The vanquish was as explosive as it was minimal. It turns out you don't need a bunch of bells and whistles when you take the hardest-hitting bass possible.
"I placed my laptop on top of this big speaker and the bass was hitting and so difficult that my laptop fell over," Ronny J laughs. "That was a moment for u.s.a., bro. We were just like, "Wow, what the fuck? This shit'south hitting hard."
Immediately after hearing it, Ski Mask knew he wanted to tape over the beat. The vocal would ultimately become a SoundCloud rap classic: "Take a Step Back."
"Dorsum then, nosotros were e'er using beats that were just absolutely ridiculous," he says. "I love information technology, though. That beat in item was simply bass. Imagine a song that has no ready up, just boom, boom, nail. The bass is basically the whole beat, only information technology works so well."
"I didn't know anything about mixing or anything then I just had the bass hit hard. That's all I knew. I thought that was the fashion to do it." – Ronny J
Before the SoundCloud rap era became famous for its blown-out, distorted audio, songs like "Take a Step Back" helped provide a blueprint for a whole scene. Ronny J says information technology wasn't a calculated determination, though. "I didn't know anything about mixing or anything then I just had the bass hitting hard," he points out. "That'south all I knew. I idea that was the style to exercise it."
That no-frills, DIY arroyo was applied to the recording of X and Ski Mask'due south vocals, likewise.
"In that location were ii bunk beds in the bedroom, and the mic was in betwixt them," Ski Mask recalls. "We recorded it with iPhone headphones, so that's probably why it had a lot of distortion. Merely we used it to our advantage."
Recording "Take a Step Dorsum" was all virtually channeling the wild energy surrounding X and Ski Mask at the time.
"We liked to rap about the crazy shit that we were doing," Ski Mask says. "We were living such a wild lifestyle, and I call up that vocal explains Jahseh's free energy at that time. How lit he was for that song is how lit his everyday life was for him. He was that active."
"Everything was super fucking raw, bro," Ronny J adds. "There were fucking guns around, fucking dagger knives everywhere, swords and shit. It was crazy. He probably didn't fifty-fifty take a shower that day. Information technology was real raw donkey fucking South Florida shit, bro."
"He was just literally yelling, no socks, no shoes, barefoot, with iPhone headphones dangling from his ears." – Ski Mask the Slump God
All of that raw, uncontrollable energy came spilling out in the now-iconic hook: "Fucked up! Fucked up! Fucked upwardly!"
"That was an in-the-moment type of matter," Ski Mask says. "He was just literally yelling, no socks, no shoes, barefoot, with iPhone headphones dangling from his ears, going, 'Fucked up! Aye, babe. Yeah!' We were all like, 'What the fuck is happening correct now?' But when we actually listened to it, it was and so practiced. It was just a big 'what the fuck' moment. Y'all tin can imagine X yelling at the top of his lungs inside a bedroom in a house—it wasn't even a studio. People were request united states if we were OK and shit. Like, 'Y'all OK in there?' [Laughs.]"
Ronny J says the real magic of the song comes from the chemical science that existed betwixt Ski Mask and X at the time.
"I've never been in a room with anyone that has energy that could lucifer what 10 has brought to the table—and Ski, too," he says. "They both complement each other and so well. Free energy doesn't prevarication. No one had always heard anything similar that before, bro. It's rock and rap. I don't even know how to fucking explicate it. People were similar, 'What the fuck are they doing?' This was not immune, merely we were nevertheless doing information technology and the globe loved information technology."
He makes an of import point. X and Ski both rap all over "Take a Step Back," but at its core, information technology'due south rooted in a punk rock ethos.
"This was at the time when rap started condign more than and more similar punk rock," says Tariq Cherif, co-founder and CEO of Rolling Loud, who later became Ski Mask's manager. "Our shows were full of mosh pits. That song was merely made for these immature kids that are into rap music, merely as well into the alternative sound."
"People started playing it at parties everywhere, breaking houses and sh*t." – Ski Mask the Slump God
DJ Scheme agrees. With years of experience every bit the tour DJ for artists like 10, Ski Mask, Craig Xen, and Juice WRLD, he'south seen firsthand how a song like "Accept a Step Back" lights upwards crowds whenever it's played at shows. "Information technology was just so perfect in that era of SoundCloud rap, and information technology's the perfect mix between everything that is heavy metallic and rock," he says. "And at the aforementioned fourth dimension, information technology'due south similar rap shit.'"
As Cherif explains, the unpolished end on the song was key to its success. "The fashion they mixed the vocals was just and then raw," he says. "It was so existent. Information technology wasn't fabricated by a cookie cutter recording studio with a perfect engineer. It was very much lo-fi, with loftier energy. Then Ski comes in with his crazy poesy on a more subdued tone, which helps the song breathe."
Post-obit the unrestrained energy of Ten'southward vocals, Ski Mask fabricated information technology a point to balance the song out with his signature referential wordplay. And then he packed his poesy with off-the-wall rhymes, spitting one-liners like, "Egg yolk color diamonds, humpty dumpty horror story/Feel like Dexter, got double-D's in my laboratory." Looking dorsum, he says, "I wanted to bring more than of a rappy-rap style to information technology, and Jah did more of a yell way to it. In that location's a lot of cartoon references in there."
When Ten, Ski Mask, and Ronny J finished the song, they had no idea how important it would go.
"At that time, nosotros didn't think that we were shit," Ski Mask says. "We were but making music that we really liked. We weren't shit. We just followed ourselves, really. You've got to await at what music was at that time. It wasn't nada like that. We were wondering what the fuck people were going to think about this at first."
Before uploading the vocal to SoundCloud on May xvi, 2016 (5 years agone today) as a part of Ski Mask's Drown In Designer mixtape, there was only one thing left to do: proper name it.
"Me and Jah wanted to call it 'Fucked Up' at first, merely nosotros felt like that was way also basic," Ski Mask reveals. "When we hear the song, what do we recollect of? And 'Take a Step Back' is what we idea of. Like, you've got to have a step back, because this shit's almost to go crazy."
He was correct. The vocal fabricated an immediate impact in the underground, earning a reputation for turning parties upside down whenever it came on.
"People started playing it at parties everywhere, breaking houses and shit," Ski Mask says. "We were like, 'Bro, what the fuck is happening?' And then it just went from there. It only started surging."
"Have a Step Back" is a song that needs to be experienced live, just Ski Mask and X hadn't played any shows yet. At the time, neither of them had the kind of fanbase that would pack out a big venue, but Ski Mask figured out a fashion to book their first show on his ain.
"There was an online thing with websites that you could try to sign yourself up for a show," he says. "So I signed us up for that shit. Me and Jah. Nosotros weren't known at all at this fourth dimension, but I signed us both upwardly for information technology, and we showed up with some of our friends." With a laugh, he admits, "And that shit was kind of empty, but I retrieve we played 'Accept a Step Back.'"
Just iii months later the song was released, X was arrested on robbery and assault charges, and detained at Broward Regional Detention Center. While he was away, each of their careers started taking off and the song suddenly became a strength at Ski Mask's shows.
"Wifisfuneral and Ski Mask went on tour," remembers Cherif, who was managing Wifi at the fourth dimension. "That was right when Ski started blowing upward and he performed that vocal every night. They were only performing for similar 100 people, only those 100 people were going crazy. So when X got out, him and Ski were able to perform it together as Rolling Loud Miami 2017, too as the Revenge Tour, which I managed. So I've seen that song build. No affair where you play it, 50 people or 50,000, the crowd goes crazy."
"Any time you play that song at Rolling Loud or whatsoever big bear witness for that matter, yous're going to take pandemonium. Information technology's literally one of the defining songs of our festival." – Tariq Cherif
Ski Mask points to the 2017 Revenge Tour as a turning signal. "We first noticed that it was crazy as fuck when we were on the Revenge Tour together," he says. "That was Jah'south big tour, and when we performed information technology in LA or something, it was similar a fucking dream, bro. Information technology was crazy. Nosotros were in a city nosotros'd never been earlier and they just went crazy as hell, bro. That'south when we knew that we had something for sure." Then he admits, "Well, I think Jah knew when he dyed his hair half-yellow, one-half-blackness. When we started getting face tattoos is when we really knew."
DJ Scheme says role of the reason the song resonates with big crowds then well is because of the simplicity of the claw. "It'southward so piece of cake to know the words to information technology," he says. "It's just, 'Fucked upwards! Fucked up! Fucked up!' I experience similar those start large shows [on the Revenge Bout] was where nosotros all started to realize, like, 'Holy shit! People turn up to this tape'"
"Take a Step Dorsum" ultimately earned the reputation as a must-play at any major rap festival, just they didn't run into that for themselves until X played it in front of tens of thousands of people at Cherif's Rolling Loud Miami festival in 2017.
"Obviously in pocket-sized rooms information technology'south crawly, and we would always have everyone singing the words, merely I don't think information technology was until Rolling Loud Miami 2017 when we really saw the power of the vocal, with then many people," Scheme says.
Soon, as X and Ski Mask established themselves equally 2 of the biggest stars in the SoundCloud rap scene, "Take a Step Dorsum" became an unofficial anthem of Rolling Loud.
"Any time you play that song at Rolling Loud, you're going to accept pandemonium," says Cherif. "It's literally one of the defining songs of our festival. When yous think Rolling Loud, you recall Travis Scott, you retrieve Uzi, you think Carti, and you definitely think X and Ski, without a incertitude. And yous definitely retrieve of that song."
"This is the epitome of what Florida undercover rap was at its peak," Scheme declares. "It's homegrown in Florida, and and then are nosotros. Information technology'southward merely extreme craziness, and I experience like that record fits into what Rolling Loud is in full general. When y'all remember of Rolling Loud, you think of mosh-pitting crowds and rap shit. And Tariq is like family unit, obviously. He manages me and Ski, then that's the dwelling house team."
"Anyone that can't become your show lit, I'd advise you to turn that bi*ch on, and 9 times out of 10, that song's going to go the crowd way more than lit than any of your own songs. It's a cheat code." – Ronny J
Ski Mask and X weren't the merely artists playing "Take a Step Back" during their sets. At whatever given Rolling Loud festival, it volition get played dozens of times in a unmarried weekend, and information technology's become a staple at every SoundCloud rap-adjacent show in the country.
"I've literally watched every artist, damn near, play that song in their set," Cherif says. "At this point it's a tribute to X, just people also do it considering it'due south guaranteed to brand the oversupply get crazy. It's every DJ'due south go-to song when their creative person needs a interruption. Or if the crowd's been dead, play that song. It is a cheat code."
Scheme has seen this firsthand among his fellow DJs. "I know right at present there'southward non i electric current DJ that doesn't have that in their shit and is non willing to spin that," he offers. "I don't know 1 person that wouldn't spin that tape. It's literally at whatsoever show. You have to play information technology, you know what I hateful? Any festival, no matter who yous are."
Ski Mask has mixed feelings about his vocal being used in and then many other artists' sets. On i paw, it's the ultimate class of flattery, merely he also sees it every bit a way for artists to leech off something special he and X created.
"I feel flattered, but then it's like, honestly, sometimes I don't know how to decipher it," he says. "Because some people play it for ingenuine reasons. They just want to plow up their sets and shit like that, but they don't realize that we want to play information technology on our set, too, because it'south our priority. So it's like, whoa, yous're merely stealing that from u.s.. Nosotros've got to play information technology, as well. Now people have to hear it 7 times in a row or some shit, considering everybody wants to play the song. And so nosotros play information technology, and it's merely died down. It'south bloodshot."
Ronny J has a indicate-blank response to the situation: "Anyone that can't get your show lit, I'd advise y'all to turn that bowwow on, and 9 times out of ten, that song's going to go the oversupply fashion more lit than any of your own songs. It's a crook code."
Yous can't talk about "Take a Step Back" without bringing up the final time Ski Mask and X performed information technology together. In 2018, at that place were tensions betwixt the 2 rappers as they worked through misunderstandings with each other, merely they put their differences aside at Rolling Loud Miami in front of tens of thousands of fans. Midway through Ski Mask's gear up, 10 popped his head up out of the DJ booth for a surprise performance. And, of course, there was just i song they could have played next: "Accept a Step Back."
Looking back, Ski Mask remembers information technology every bit one of the most unforgettable moments of his career. "It started raining and I was like, this was literally a scene out of a movie," he recalls. "In my caput, I felt like I wasn't fifty-fifty there. We said, 'Fuck the rain. Nosotros're still going to perform.' So we performed 'Have a Stride Dorsum' and everybody went fucking nuts. It was actually surreal."
"It's just pure raw emotion, and I feel like that's what goes the furthest in music." – DJ Scheme
"That'south 1 of the most iconic sets in Rolling Loud history," Cherif says. "And information technology was great to see them reunite. A lot of hugs were shared. A lot of smiles. I call back some tears might've been shed. These guys came up sleeping in cars together. These guys came from zero and became some of the biggest artists in the world. They had their differences and they had their split, but they came dorsum together. Unfortunately it was not long before 10 passed, but I do find solace in knowing that they did get to reunite and squash their differences. They proved onstage that they're the fucking GOATs."
DJ Scheme adds, "Having Jah pass away, it was such a sad thing, only to know that he performed a record like that with Ski at that last testify, it solidifies how legendary that song is."
Five years later the release of "Take a Step Back," it's already stood the exam of fourth dimension. At that place were a lot of songs that exploded to viral success in the superlative of the SoundCloud rap era, but non many of them have had the sustained relevance of this one. As Scheme points out, "Nosotros've been performing that record for five years potent and people still act similar we perform it like it's the first time it ever came out." Hand in hand with an era-defining record similar X'southward "Look at Me!" it will likely exist remembered as a SoundCloud rap classic.
For Ronny J, it's a reminder of an unforgettable run he shared with 10, Ski, and other SoundCloud rap stars. "I had a No. one song on SoundCloud every fucking week with these dudes, bro," he says. "Whenever we wanted. Bro, we were getting more plays than dudes that weren't even on SoundCloud and signed. Information technology was merely insane." Speaking near "Have a Step Back" specifically, he adds, "I'm going to evidence my kids like, 'Yo, look what dad did dorsum in the solar day with legends.' All legends. Shit's fucking crazy, bro. That's my favorite beat ever."
Everyone involved with the making of the song says they were besides caught upward in the moment to realize the history that they were making at the time. Merely after 5 years to pace dorsum and gain perspective, they have a little ameliorate understanding of why "Take a Pace Back" resonated then deeply with fans.
"I remember it's the pure energy of it and the pure ignorance of it, honestly," Ski Mask says. "In that location's nothing like information technology. Information technology'due south something that everybody tin get behind and chronicle to. I feel like everybody's played it then much that they all know it and they all like it. I recall information technology's like a signifier. It'south like, 'OK, it'due south time for shit to get started.'"
Tariq Cherif argues that it already holds up next to iconic punk rock songs from decades by. "Information technology just reminds me of like the Ramones or the Sex Pistols. Honestly, it'due south bigger than that, though. It's like Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' or whatsoever songs from these counter-culture superstars that have transcended the exam of time, on the edgier side of the music spectrum. I think this vocal will stand correct alongside the legends of punk stone and the legends of rock, or even Public Enemy. Anybody that said shit with their breast out."
Three years after the death of XXXTentacion, Ronny J sees the music as a way to keep the retentivity of his close friend and collaborator going. "I promise people never forget most 10 and how much of an touch he made," he says. "And simply how much he truly wanted people to feel him through his art. I want people to experience that from me and Ski likewise. I want people to continue to feel X through us. That's why it's so important for me and Ski to keep on creating. At the end of the day, no 1 tin always take this away from usa, bro. We're fucking legends and that's that."
"Just don't think too hard about it and enjoy that moment of it," he says. "Indulge in the moment of it, because it'due south only pure elation. That'due south what me and Jah were really big on: happiness and killing anxiety in the world."
morgansurionotely.blogspot.com
Source: https://www.complex.com/music/ski-mask-the-slump-god-xxxtentacion-take-a-step-back