Skilla Baby Breaks Down The Price of Fame and Why His New Album Is His First Real Rebrand

For Skilla Baby, The Price of Fame is meant to sit closer to daily life than spectacle. The Detroit rapper says the album, out Aug. 21, is built for the working man, the struggling man, the person trying to keep moving while protecting family and still hoping to make something of themselves. That perspective runs against the larger-than-life posture artists are often asked to perform, and Skilla is clear that he wants something different from his music now.

“The Price of Fame is an album for the average man. The working man. The struggling man. People that could go through hell and back to provide and protect their family and be successful. For a long time, as a persona, we have to portray this person that’s bigger than life. And I think when I really took a deep dive into people that create, it was more about relatability than not being relatable. And I was about not being relatable.

“When we create, it’s like, how are we above these people? That’s not who I want to be as a creative. I want to be relatable. I want people to understand my journey. I want to understand other people’s journey. And when people listen to my music, I want them to be like, ‘Yeah, I’ve been through some of the same things.’ So, I want people to connect with what I’m talking about more so than listening to it because they want to go to the club.”

Speaking to Peter A. Berry for XXL’s Summer 2026 issue, Skilla framed the album as the closest version of his real self he has put on record. He pointed to songs like “Product of My Environment,” “He Never Left” and “No Tears” as pieces of the same emotional picture, each one reflecting where he says he is in life right now. “There’s so many songs on the album that embody where I’m at in life right now,” he said. “They all have different pieces of where I’m at in life right now because it’s just the album is just really my true feelings and emotions. I really poured that into it.”

That honesty extends to the mental-health side of the album, too. Skilla said he wants listeners to understand how to move through depression and come out of it, especially because he didn’t fully recognize what he was dealing with until after the fact. For him, the escape came from ordinary things. “I feel like it’s important for me to teach people how not to go through what I went through and how to come out of things like depression. And I didn’t know I was depressed or having mental health struggles until I really came out of it. The only thing that got me out of depression was doing normal stuff that I love, little simple things that make me happy. We forget that we chasing happiness at the end of the day. We take that for granted.”

Elsewhere on the album, “Get You Some Money” carries a Jesse Powell sample and, Skilla said, took him back to childhood, before social status and image games mattered as much as survival. Being from Detroit shaped that view. “I come from Detroit, which is a hustle city. So that’s what I knew growing up,” he explained. “When I was making ‘Get You Some Money,’ the tempo just led me to talk about it, and I wanted to inspire people to not be so one-dimensional when it comes to hustling, because that’s not what we know. We grew up selling candy, doing all types of things, washing cars, paving, [cutting] grass. I had a job at 14. I don’t want people to be embarrassed of taking care of their family. So, when I was making a song, I wanted it to be tasteful. I wanted the kids to understand it, but I wanted it to have a message too.”

Skilla also said he approached The Price of Fame with classic-album ambitions in mind, drawing from what he grew up on and what he values in hip-hop. He mentioned a song called “Dear Mama,” which he describes as Tupac Shakur’s “Dear Mama”-esque, and another called “Paranoid,” where he talks openly about paranoia and calls himself God’s guinea pig. “I be feeling like God be using me, and for some in this point in time, I feel like he’s using me more than ever,” he said.

For him, the project marks a real turning point. “I think this is the rebrand. This is me shedding skin. This is the part where I transition from one type of artist to another, switch tiers. I feel like I’m switching tiers this time around. My first album on a label. I’m really switching tiers, changing gears, getting out of one car to another.”

The 2026 XXL Freshman issue is available to purchase here now as well as merch. In addition to interviews with the 2026 XXL Freshman Class and DJ Drama, there are also conversations with T.I., Sexyy Red, Young M.A, Cash Cobain, Skilla Baby, Lil Tjay, high-profile defense attorney Brian Steel, singer-songwriter Odeal and more, plus a look back at what the 2025 XXL Freshman Class has been doing and explore the cultural impact of the 2016 XXL Freshman Class and where its members are today.

Editor’s Note: This story appears in the Summer 2026 issue of XXL Magazine, on newsstands now and available for sale on the XXL website.