Most will only recognize SkyeTunes from her 2018 single “Fairytale” with Chris Brown and DJ Khaled, but that is only a small fragment of her story. The R&B singer has been the industry for over 20 years now with many highs and lows. Skye was a member of T-Pain’s girl group Sophia Fresh in the late 2000’s and the trio made some buzz with their Kanye West assisted single “What It Is”. She re-emerged as a solo artist years later and she’s still going strong today. YouKnowIGotSoul had a chance to talk to Skye about her history in the music industry as well as some of her highs and lows in the 20 years that she’s been in the industry. We also talk to her about new music coming in the future including production from Grammy Award winning producer Antonio Dixon who originally discovered and signed her to The Underdogs camp back in the mid 2000’s.
YouKnowIGotSoul: Talk about creating your new single “Reset” that you worked on with Antonio Dixon.
SkyeTunes: When we started working on this record, I already had so many slow songs. We were in search for hard mids and uptempos, so when Tony sent me a group of beats one night, I was like “This is a slow song. Why did he send this?”. I couldn’t stop listening to the track though, it was so dope to me. I was at Harold Lilly’s studio with Antoine Harris and Megan Parker. We were working on something that was an uptempo in one room and they went to another room and started working on “Reset”. I knew it was going to be good, but I didn’t want any more slow songs. Once they sang it though, I was like “We gotta do this!”. I then added onto the writing of the song to finish it. The song was called “Recess” at first, but we ended up ultimately changing it to “Reset” because creatively “Reset” can be a lot more. There’s a whole Reset Challenge that I’m going to begin and you can reset your life in so many ways.
YouKnowIGotSoul: This song sounds like a reset from what we’ve heard from you previously.
SkyeTunes: The music I’ve put out as a solo artist is a lot different from what I’m doing now. I think “Reset” is the perfection introduction of the new me because It’s way more vocals. I’m writing a whole lot more and it’s stemming from my own ideas. I’ve grown as an artist and a woman. I know I’m a lot more confident in who I am and what I stand for. “Reset” is the the perfect reintroduction of myself. You’re going to get a lot more classic R&B from me. Working with someone like Antonio Dixon or Harold Lilly, I’m only working with people who are GOATs. That itself is a reset. The formula is going to be the same, but the material that I’m going to get to what I’m creating is better. I’m just excited to show the growth that I have now.
YouKnowIGotSoul: Talk about linking up with Antonio Dixon originally. I know you were signed to The Underdogs back in the day.
SkyeTunes: I was a very young preteen when I signed to Tony and The Underdogs. I was in a girl group called Gyrlfriend, but then we ultimately changed our name to Sophia Fresh. We got to witness so many hits that are now classics. We knew then it was good music, but we didn’t know the success of what it was. Being around people like Antonio Dixon, Harvey Mason Jr, Damon Thomas and Eric Dawkins has molded me into the vocalist and writer that I am today. It taught me about texture, tone and certain vocal decisions that you make. It’s stuff that you can’t buy. I feel like we don’t have those types of camps anymore creating that type of music. I was blessed to be in that mix and still have a piece of that today to incorporate into what I’m doing now.
YouKnowIGotSoul: How did your group Sophia Fresh originally get discovered and signed?
SkyeTunes: We were a group of kids that were very edgy and we weren’t apologetic about anything. We were just authentically ourselves. We would just show up, sing and dance wherever we thought we could get a shot. At the time, our producer that was working with us in Houston, he was like “I think I should take you to this show in Anaheim and there will a bunch of producers and engineers there”. We went to the convention and we walked around. We would just be singing and then Tony just happened to be there. He stopped us and invited us back to the studio. He introduced us to Vincent Herbert and he also brought Larry Jackson to meet us. Larry brought us to Clive Davis and we performed for him. We got signed right away.
YouKnowIGotSoul: Talk about the transition from The Underdogs to working under T-Pain’s imprint.
SkyeTunes: When The Underdogs deal separated, our deal ended with J Records because we were signed through their production company. At that one point we were free agents. Our new manager wanted us to meet Mike Caren at Atlantic Records. We did our thing and it was instant. Mike was like “I think you girls would be really great with T-Pain” and he took us over to Record Plant. We sang and danced for T-Pain and he was like “Sign them! This is my group”.
YouKnowIGotSoul: How were you processing all of this at that time?
SkyeTunes: When we got signed to Atlantic and T-Pain, it was when he was at the height of his career. He was had 30 something songs on the radio. Every tour that he went on, we went with him. Even if we weren’t singing, we were dancing. First of all, it’s two totally different environments. You go from an R&B house with The Underdogs to now we’re in this whole Hip Hop environment. That was a bit of a shock, but it was so fun. Our group was big on dancing, so we got to break any fears that we had as a performer just by being on stage with him. We got to absorb his audience. It was a blessing in disguise because we didn’t have to start off slow where you perform for 20 people. We were on stage with him when he’s on tour with Rick Ross or Pitbull. We had a great deal of exposure very fast.
YouKnowIGotSoul: We just featured the single “What It Is” with Kanye West on our page. That was a different time in the industry with MySpace and iTunes. What was it like seeing all these people loving your music?
SkyeTunes: It was very cool because we are dancers ourselves. It was a beautiful thing to watch online and see how many dance crews made up choreography. There was a big show in Japan and they were using that song in a contest. It was like America’s Got Talented. It was amazing to be recognized globally like that with only such a small catalog of music. We had like 3-4 songs, but it was beautiful to see online how many people liked us. We never saw all of that on a daily basis. It’s something that I miss. I miss the girls, but I miss showing up to a dance studio with our own rehearsal and seeing people scream for us. We were big in the dance community. I do miss that, but I do know it’ll be coming back with my music.
YouKnowIGotSoul: What ended up with that T-Pain situation? Even though the album is all over the internet now, it never actually came out.
SkyeTunes: At the time I believe Atlantic and T-Pain had different ways in how they wanted to present us. Because T-Pain was hot at the time, A lot of executives wanted us to be little T-Pain minions, but T-Pain didn’t want the same thing to happen to us that happened to him. T-Pain came out with autotune so people thought he couldn’t sing and had to use that to showcase his music. He was like “Nope, these girls can actually sing and dance”. He wanted us to be real artists, not just labeled as autotune. It was kind of a back and forth thing. We were in a stuck place and the group had to make a decision, so we disbanded. We started doing different things. We talk all the time and here we are today. We are very supportive of each other. It wasn’t a hurtful thing, but life happens. It’s unfortunate and we feel unsung, but it’s our job now to make sure that we still present and tell the story because we have a lot of fans that want to know what happened.
YouKnowIGotSoul: Anything you’d like to add?
SkyeTunes: For my actual project, that will be coming out early 2025. I don’t want to give a date because there’s a full project that I’m releasing for the holidays. I’m excited about that. I released a single last year called “Home Alone”. That will come out before my music. it’ll probably be in the next 30 days.