Rotate Talk With Skyy ZNO – ‘ExitUs’ Interview

For Skyy ZNO, music has never been about staying inside the lines. Born in the United States and raised in the Dominican Republic, the singer, songwriter, composer, and producer grew up moving between cultures, sounds, languages, and perspectives. Rather than seeing those influences as separate identities, he has embraced them as pieces of the same story, one that ultimately shaped his approach to music and the world around him.

That perspective comes fully into focus on ExitUs, his debut album and a seven-act journey through identity, survival, displacement, memory, struggle, love, and ultimately ascension. Rooted in the history of the African Diaspora, the project asks a powerful question: what survived despite everything that was taken? For Skyy, the answer lives in rhythm, spirituality, creativity, culture, and the enduring ability to create beauty in the face of adversity.

Across ExitUs, Afrobeats, Soul, Reggae, Salsa, Dembow, R&B, and other influences converge into a continuous musical narrative. Rather than presenting these sounds as disconnected genres, Skyy uses them to explore the connections that exist across borders and generations. His philosophy is summed up in the phrase “One world, one rhythm,” a reflection of his belief that music can reveal connections that geography and language sometimes obscure.

The album’s seven-act structure reinforces that idea. With cinematic interludes serving as the connective tissue between chapters, ExitUs is designed to feel less like a playlist and more like one unfolding experience. As Skyy explains, the project is “one house,” with the interludes acting as the hallways that carry listeners from one emotional space into another.

That sense of movement is also deeply personal. Growing up between the United States and the Dominican Republic taught Skyy that identity does not always fit neatly onto a map. His understanding of home has consequently become less about geography and more about people, memory, culture, belonging, and the feeling of recognising something familiar. On Coming Home, that idea takes on another dimension: sometimes, returning home means returning to yourself.

With ExitUs, Skyy ZNO introduces not only a body of music but an artistic worldview. From the difficult realities explored in “ICE Cold World” and “Pressure” to the sense of ascension that ultimately defines the project, he allows both darkness and light to exist within the same story.

In this conversation, Skyy ZNO opens up about the story behind ExitUs, growing up between cultures, his earliest memories of making music, working with nine-time GRAMMY-winning producer Joe “The Butcher” Nicolo, the meaning of “One world, one rhythm,” and why the album is not the destination, but a doorway into what comes next.

For readers discovering you for the first time, who is Skyy ZNO?

Skyy ZNO: I’m a singer, songwriter, composer, and producer, but I think the simplest way to describe me is as a storyteller. I’ve never really seen music as something that belongs inside a box. I was born in the United States, came of age in the Dominican Republic, and have been influenced by a world that has never felt divided to me.

I make music from that perspective. You’ll hear Afrobeats, Soul, Reggae, Salsa, Dembow, R&B, Rock, and other influences in what I do, but I’m not trying to collect genres. I’m trying to connect people. I want the music to make you feel something, think about something, or remember something you may not even have known you remembered.

ExitUs is the clearest introduction to who I am right now—but it’s only the beginning.

Congratulations on your new project. Can you tell us a bit about ExitUs and what inspired it?

Skyy ZNO: ExitUs is my debut album, but I don’t really think of it as just an album. It’s a journey through identity, survival, displacement, memory, love, struggle, and ultimately movement forward.

The inspiration came from looking at the history of the African Diaspora and asking a different question. We know what was taken. We know what people endured. But what survived?

The music survived. The rhythm survived. The spirituality, creativity, language, culture, and ability to create beauty in the middle of adversity survived.

That became the foundation of ExitUs. I wanted to explore the journey from that history into who we are now—and where we go next.

“ExitUs” is described as a seven-act conceptual journey rather than simply a collection of songs. Where did the idea for the project’s larger narrative come from?

Skyy ZNO: Because the story itself was never meant to be separated into pieces.

Pain, identity, healing, discovery, and purpose don’t happen independently. They build on each other. The seven acts gave me a way to take the listener through that progression rather than simply giving them seven songs.

The project is rooted in what I call the physics of survival—the ability of people to endure, adapt and still create beauty from circumstances that were designed to break them.

So ExitUs moves through darkness, reflection, struggle, awakening, connection, and ultimately ascension. I wanted you to feel like you actually went somewhere by the time you reached the end.

You call “ExitUs” “One world, one rhythm.” What does that statement mean to you in a world where music is often divided by geography, language, and genre?

Skyy ZNO: To me, “One world, one rhythm” means that the borders we created aren’t necessarily the borders that exist in music.

You can trace rhythms from Africa into the Caribbean, into Latin America, into the United States and across the world. The names changed. The languages changed. The instruments changed. But something remained.

That’s what I’m interested in.

I’m not trying to erase cultural differences. I’m saying those differences don’t have to prevent us from recognizing our connections. Music has always been one of the places where humanity remembers that we’re connected.

Every song begins with a commanding interlude. What role do those interludes play in taking the listener from one chapter of the story into the next?

Skyy ZNO: The interludes are the connective tissue.

I didn’t want ExitUs to feel like you were listening to one song, then another, then another. I wanted the transitions to feel intentional—almost cinematic.

They give you a moment to leave one emotional space before entering another. They help establish the world of each act and remind you that you’re still inside the same story.

So the album isn’t really seven separate rooms. It’s one house, and the interludes are the hallways.

“Coming Home” appears particularly significant within a project centred on migration, identity and the diaspora. What does “home” mean to you personally? Is it a place, a people, a feeling, or something else?

Skyy ZNO: Home isn’t one place for me.

Being born in the United States and growing up in the Dominican Republic taught me early that identity doesn’t always fit neatly on a map. I’ve lived between cultures, sounds and perspectives, so I don’t feel the need to choose one place and call everything else foreign.

Home is where I can be completely myself.

It’s people. It’s memory. It’s culture. It’s belonging. And sometimes it’s simply that feeling you get when something sounds familiar—even if you’ve never heard it before.

That’s part of what Coming Home represents. Sometimes you’re not returning to a place. You’re returning to yourself.

You worked alongside nine-time GRAMMY-winning producer and engineer Joe “The Butcher” Nicolo. How did that collaboration come together?

Skyy ZNO: Working with Joe was a blessing.

What made the collaboration work wasn’t simply his résumé. It was his ability to listen. ExitUs already had a spirit and a message before we began working together. I wasn’t looking for someone to replace that vision. I needed someone who could help me bring it into focus.

Joe has decades of experience as a producer, engineer, and musician, and he knows how to hear what’s underneath a record. He helped me translate things I was hearing in my head into something people could actually experience.

And despite everything he’s accomplished, the studio wasn’t about ego. It was about the music. That made a huge difference.

Before the album, you released songs including “Carol of the Bells,” “Ledge,” and “Ándale.” Looking back, how did those releases prepare listeners for what you eventually created with “ExitUs”?

Skyy ZNO: Those records were really pieces of the puzzle.

“Carol of the Bells” allowed me to experiment with something people already knew and approach it from my own perspective. “Ledge” was much more personal and exposed another side of me, while “Ándale” opened the door further into the Latin and Caribbean influences that are part of my musical DNA.

Looking back, I think those releases gave people glimpses of the artist I was becoming without giving them the whole picture.

ExitUs is where those different pieces finally started speaking to each other.

You recorded your first song at just seven years old for a school mathematics project. Do you remember what that experience felt like, and what made you continue pursuing music after that?

Skyy ZNO: I remember being seven and simply thinking it was fun.

I wasn’t sitting there thinking, I’m beginning my career. It was a school project. I was just making something.

But music kept finding me.

I grew up surrounded by creativity. My great-grandmother played piano, and there were artists and producers throughout my family. By fourteen, I was performing with a group, and those years taught me things you can’t learn simply by being in a studio—how to perform, how to read a room, how to connect with people.

Eventually I realized music wasn’t just something I enjoyed doing. It was how I processed the world.

You were born in the United States, raised in the Dominican Republic, and moved between different worlds growing up. How did living between cultures influence the way you understand identity and belonging?

Skyy ZNO: It taught me that I don’t have to choose.

I’ve experienced different cultures from the inside, and that made me understand that music is bigger than nationality. The rhythms I grew up around aren’t isolated. They are connected to histories that stretch across oceans.

So when I make music, I’m not asking, Which culture am I supposed to represent?

I’m asking, What parts of all these experiences made me who I am?

That’s why I see myself as a global citizen. My identity isn’t a limitation. It’s one of my greatest creative advantages.

Was there a particular song on “ExitUs” that was the most emotionally difficult to create? If so, why?

Skyy ZNO: “ICE Cold World” and “Pressure” were difficult in different ways because they deal with the parts of the journey that aren’t comfortable.

There are moments when you have to confront what you’ve experienced rather than romanticize it. ExitUs isn’t just about triumph. You can’t really talk about survival without acknowledging what survival required.

Those songs forced me to sit with some of that tension.

But that’s also why they needed to be there. I didn’t want to make a project that pretended the journey was easy. The light means more when you’re willing to acknowledge the darkness.

One word that describes “ExitUs”?

Skyy ZNO: Ascension.

One artist you’d love to collaborate with?

Skyy ZNO: Burna Boy.

I think there would be something really interesting about bringing our perspectives together. He’s built a sound that connects Africa to the rest of the world without compromising where it comes from. I respect that.

If “ExitUs” were a film, what would its opening scene look like? (YOUR CREATION)

Skyy ZNO: Black screen.

You hear water before you see anything.

Then you see an ocean—vast, almost endless. Not a ship. Not a person. Just water.

You hear a voice say something that makes you understand that the ocean remembers.

Then the camera begins moving beneath the surface.

You start seeing fragments—faces, artifacts, shadows, movement, memory—and the rhythm begins.

Eventually the darkness becomes light.

And that’s when JADE / EXITUS begins.

What’s next for Skyy ZNO: another project, tour, or concert?

Skyy ZNO: Right now, I’m focused on taking ExitUs beyond the record itself.

The next phase is about bringing the world of ExitUs to people—through performances, visuals, international opportunities and collaborations. I want people to experience the project, not just stream it.

And I’m already creating.

There are songs and ideas that didn’t make the album because they belonged somewhere else. ExitUs was never intended to be the end of the story. It’s the doorway.

So yes—there’s more music coming. More visuals. More collaborations. And eventually, I want to take this experience to stages around the world.

Message to fans and readers?

Skyy ZNO: Don’t be afraid to discover who you are.

You don’t have to fit inside somebody else’s definition of you. You don’t have to choose one culture, one sound, one place or one version of yourself just because the world makes you feel like you should.

And remember that your history doesn’t only contain what happened to you. It also contains what survived through you.

That’s what ExitUs means to me.

One world. One rhythm.

And this is only the beginning.

With ExitUs, Skyy ZNO has created more than a debut album. He has built a musical journey that reflects the complexity of identity, the endurance of culture, and the connections that continue to exist across oceans and generations. From his experiences between the United States and the Dominican Republic to the African and Caribbean influences woven throughout the project, his story is one of refusing to choose between worlds and instead finding a way to bring them together.