- Welcome to "Music Matters".

I am your host, Apolonia Davalos.

We build community through music as we explore how and why music matters to you and our musical guests.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) We lift off into infinity plus one with Grammy winning family hip hop artist Secret Agent 23 Skidoo.

This mozartistic funky wonka spins syllabic back flips, awakening our inner secret superhero.

"Music Matters" enters the intergalactic stage as we board the makeshift spaceship with Secret Agent 23 Skidoo.

♪ Right here dream what you want me to be ♪ ♪ Gotta dream first ♪ ♪ Wake it up, wake it up, come on, wake up.

♪ - Dreams are the gateway to imagination.

And imagination is the gateway to life.

So the last full album that I made is called "Wake Up the Dream".

And it's a full on concept album where DJs Sub-C and Uncle Unc, which are actually your subconscious and your unconscious, are spinning your dreams all night long on WREM radio.

And so it got me thinking a lot about dreams, and we tell kids and we tell ourselves dreams are important.

You know what I'm saying?

Follow your dreams, chase your dreams.

But dreams have such different meanings, right?

Because dreams are like your aspirations in life.

Dreams are your hopes, what you want to have happen, but dreams are also your day dreams and your nighttime dreams, which is just your imagination running wild.

And you know what?

They're both important.

And that is definitely what I like to remind kids.

And it's kind of at the core of my thing, which is why I'm so obsessed with dreams.

Because a lot of times your day dreams are how you end up getting to what you hope.

You know what I mean?

That's how you form your hope.

And it's also a lot of times what gives you the motivation and the inspiration to get to the things you want to get to.

We are all so much more brilliant than we think we are.

We're so limited and distracted by life that we don't realize that behind that, we're brilliant and we're connected and we're connected to the planet and the universe and all that is.

And we have access to so, so much.

And sometimes it takes us dreaming or daydreaming or just kind of letting our mind run wild to be able to access that, to be able to get to how brilliant we truly are.

♪ You gotta agree, man, I can't be you.

♪ ♪ I gotta be me, so whatcha gotta be?

♪ ♪ I gotta be me ♪ ♪ Whatcha gotta be?

I gotta be me ♪ Been an independent artist for a quarter of a century now.

Been on tour for 25 years.

A lot has changed in that time.

A lot in the industry is changing that time.

I think that I've been real happy to be independent because you know what?

I can't get fired, you know, I can't fire me.

I've tried.

(laughs) But ultimately, being an independent means that you can just keep going and you can just keep developing and keep evolving your craft the way that you think you should mimic what other people are doing.

You make yourself replaceable.

And if instead you create something that no one else is doing, then you're irreplaceable.

I think that the combination of genres and elements that I put together, the specific type of storytelling that I do, and the audience that I aim it at, that's a really unique combination.

And so because of that, I've been able to enjoy a lot of longevity in this and I'm gonna keep going for quite a long time.

♪ Imagine I be friends with ♪ ♪ I think I imagine every friend ♪ ♪ Which means I'm imaginary then ♪ ♪ And I'm really not sure that he's wrong ♪ What's important to me is I don't make kids music.

I make family music.

And the difference there is kids music is for kids.

Family music is for everybody in the family.

We all share the same experiences, right?

Things like things that a friend of mine named Billy Jonas calls the primary colors, fear, love, excitement, hunger.

We all deal with those things.

So if we can create songs that speak about those things in a way that relate to both the kid and the crowd and the person that drove them there, then you have a song that unites the whole family.

We say, boil it down, don't dumb it down.

I figured I'm gonna put out an album that kind of has a different, a few different levels of stuff, some of which might be kind of directed at like a five or six year old, some of which might be a little bit more complex, and then a couple that are just weird and just really where I wanna do everything I want to do and put it into a song.

And one of those songs, "Imaginary Friend", which is multiple grownups have said to me "thank you for teaching my child about existentialism through this song".

Because the concept is about an imaginary friend trying to convince the kid that he's actually the one that's imaginary.

And that is so psychedelic that it's almost spooky, and the music follows exactly the same feeling.

And that was when I put on there like, "man, I love this song, but I don't know if people are even gonna get it".

That has been my biggest hit of my entire career and it just gave me the reassurance to follow the weirdness of my vision.

♪ Supersonic supersonic, symphonic ♪ ♪ It's harmonic, together it's hypnotic ♪ So I got the opportunity to write a book for audible.com.

I'd love y'all to check it out because I think it's one of the most amazing things I've ever gotten to be a part of.

This book is about how to write rhymes and the craft of rhyme writing, broken down in very thorough chapters on how to do it.

This is for young adults and also for adults.

And then in between we explore different cultures across the planet that really hold storytelling and songwriting in super high regard.

So it's called "Word is Born" by Secret Agent 23 SKidoo and Grandmaster Caz.

It's on audible.com.

It's free, so go check it out, listen to it, give us a review, tell us what you thought.

It's one of my favorite things that I've ever helped create and it's something I want the world to know about.

♪ It's pretty spacious in my makeshift spaceship ♪ ♪ that I made with strange things in my basement.

♪ - Secret Agent 23 Skidoo.

Thank you so much for honoring and amplifying hip hop culture and teaching us the power and impact of the imagination.

- Thank you for the opportunity to shine this out into the universe.

- Woo.

To learn more, follow him on his social media and visit his website, secretagent23skidoo.com.

We'd like to thank our sponsor, the Mortimer & Mimi Levitt Foundation.

I am your host app, Apolonia Davalos, and I love you.

(upbeat music) - We are the Austad and Sherman family.

Music matters because it connects people and brings people together of all different ages and cultures and stages of life.

- [All] We love (indistinct) (upbeat music continues)