I have to thank Hoodie Allen again for showing me another great artist; just like how he introduced me to Chance The Rapper, G-Eazy and OCD: Moosh and Twist. I remember hearing Skizzy on Hoodie Allen’s Crew Cuts; I kind of forgot to look more into his music. Then my best friend Youtube decided to reintroduce him into my music listening life. I listened to his song “Cheer Up” and even before the song ended I had downloaded his  2 mixtapes (Phases and Paces).

Skizzy Mars started to release singles from his latest EP The Red Balloon Project. Once I heard the song “Like This” from the tape I started checking on his Twitter / Youtube every day to see when he was going to release the Red Balloon Project. I’m a month late but I have taken a good listen to it and it has quickly become one of my favourite projects of this year. The Red Balloon Project has 7 tracks; you can see artists like Phoebe Ryan, QuESt, Olivver the Kid, G-Eazy and a few more all featuring on the tape. Skizzy Mars has this really cool flow the best way to describe it would be singing rap. It’s like he’s singing but he’s spitting some fire bars. After “Like This” it goes right into the track “The City”. It starts with the faint sound of a guitar playing with city ambience in the back ground. (If you listen closely you can hear someone say “I HATE CITY TRANSIT”. Okay that’s not true.) Once the beat picks up Phoebe Ryan’s strong vocals booms through your speakers singing “in the city!” Skizzy Mars then jumps in with some slick rhymes as he’s talking about growing up in a city that’s so big it’s easy to get lost “the big apple took a bite out of me”. Probably my favourite song on The Red Balloon Project is “Do You There”. It features the smooth voice of Marc E. Bassy that goes perfectly on top of the bouncy beat which makes you think of blue skies and summer. It’s one of those songs you blast while on a road trip (you need this song on your trip to Disney World playlist. DISNEY WORLD!) The last two songs of the EP are pure gold. Time featuring Olivver the kid who supplies the vocals for the hook and G-Eazy who adds a hot fire verse onto the song. This is not the first time G-Eazy and Skizzy Mars have set a song on fire together before. They were both actually on Hoodie Allen’s song Casanova.  Time is a mellower track, about how Skizzy Mars just needs sometime until he is a star. To finish The Red Balloon Project Skizzy gives us the song “To The Bottom”. Just like Time it’s a very mellow beat with the use of claps and some synth sounds. Charlie Brand’s voice adds this eerie effect on the song as Skizzy leaves his mark on your ears with lyrics like “Yeah, tryna make it to the promised land, Feeling’ on shortys butt, drink is in the other hand.” Skizzy Mars is quickly making his way up the hip hop ladder. He is nominated for XXL’s Freshmen cover this year, you can vote for him here. Also follow him on twitter and get The Red Balloon Project now.