Our copy of Billboard's Book of Top 40 Hits has it that Skee-Lo was born Anthony Roundtree in Riverside, California, on 3/5/75. Internet sources from all over provide conflicting data. In cases like this, we go by the book. The album I Wish went gold, and the title track - known for the refrain "I wish I was a little bit taller..." was Skee-Lo's debut single and his only hit. In fact, he only released one other album, I Can't Stop in 2000. You might think that his career is pretty hung up at this point, but we just visited Skee-Lo's MySpace page, and his new single "Club Song" sounds like it could stand up to anything you hear on the radio right now, so who knows - we might not have heard the last of him. Skee-Lo also augmented his career with acting appearances in TV shows and a VJ for MTV.
This stood out from the braggadocio gangsta rap songs of the era, as Skee-Lo rapped about his shortcomings, even complaining that the only girls he gets are the hood rats.
About a decade after this was released, the term "baller" came into rap lyric vogue, and the term was used to represent a successful young man who liked to flaunt his wealth, often an athlete or entertainer. In this song, when Skee-Lo raps, "I wish I was a baller" he apparently means an actual basketball player, as elsewhere the lyrics refer to somebody being "tall and he plays ball" and to Skee-Lo lamenting "when it comes to playing basketball, I'm always last to be picked." The rest of the lyrics sound very retro, with the 8-track tape and hatchback car. Kickin' it "old skool"!
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