Lil Skies

Kimetrius Christopher Foose was born August 4, 1998, in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.[3][4] Foose began freestyling at age 3. He was introduced to music by his father, Michael Burton Jr., a hip hop artist formerly known as Dark Skies, now as BurntMan, and his mother Shelby Foose. Foose's stage name is a play on his fathers'.[5][6] Foose and his family moved to Waynesboro, Pennsylvania when he was in third grade.[4] When he was 11, his father was injured in a workplace chemical explosion at the Rust-Oleum plant near Williamsport, Maryland. Skies claims he used to have to sell weed and work “little jobs” to pay for studio time and music videos before the fame.[7] He worked at McDonalds and a Japanese restaurant in his hometown before the fame. [8] For the meantime he would spend the summer at a relatives' house; it was at that point in time he worked in collaboration with his dad on his first project released on August 14, entitled, "Birth of Skies Vol. 1". Foose and his father would write an album the following year, Father-Son Talk, discussing the recovery process.[9] Foose graduated from Waynesboro Area Senior High School in 2016[10] and briefly attended Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania before dropping out to focus on his rap career.[11] His musical inspirations are Lil Wayne, Travis Scott and 50 Cent.[12]

In October 2016, Foose opened for Fetty Wap at Shippensburg University[6] and later released his first mixtape, Alone, in January 2017.[13] In July 2017, he released two songs, "Red Roses" featuring Landon Cube[14] and "Off The Goop" featuring Sprite Lee.[15] He would later release other songs that year, including "Rude" and "Signs of Jealousy."[16]

Foose's repertoire of singles caught the attention of Atlantic Records who partnered with his own label, All We Got.[11][17] He released his first major label mixtape, Life of a Dark Rose, on January 10, 2018.[18] The mixtape debuted at #23[19] on the Billboard 200 chart and went on to peak at #10.[20] The songs "Nowadays" and "Red Roses" (both featuring Landon Cube) debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 list at #85 and #98 respectively[21] and have since peaked at #55 and #69 (also respectively).[22] He also toured nationally with Lil Uzi Vert in 2017 and began his "Life of a Dark Rose" tour in 2018, but had to end the tour short due to pneumonia.[18] On May 4, 2018, the music video for "Lust" was released, peaking at number 87 on the Billboard Hot 100 and being certified platinum by the RIAA.[23] On May 31, he released "I Know You," featuring Yung Pinch, which peaked at 79 on the Billboard Hot 100 and is now certified gold by RIAA.[24]

Lil Skies performing at the Fillmore Auditorium in May 2019

On March 1, 2019, Lil Skies released his album Shelby, while simultaneously debuting the music video for lead single "i".[25] Skies named the album “Shelby” after his mother, Shelby Foose.[26] He made a short documentary  for the album on his YouTube channel by interviewing her and surprising her during it by telling her he was going to name it after her. [27] In the interview his mother said, “When I took you to get your first tattoo, and I said just don’t ever do your face, your hands, or your neck”, and skies smirks as he has many of them in all of those places.[27] He claims to have gotten them on his face and his whole body to make him commit fully to music since it would be nearly impossible to get a day job with them.[28] May 21, 2019, Lil Skies released a video for "Breathe", a song from his album Shelby.[29] On July 14, 2019, Lil Skies collaborated with rapper Machine Gun Kelly on the song "Burning Memories". On March 4, 2020, Skies released the song "Havin' My Way", featuring Lil Durk.[30] On July 10, 2020, he released the track "Red & Yellow" from the Road to Fast 9 mixtape.[31] In December 2020, Foose announced the release of his second album, Unbothered, which was released on January 22, 2021.

Foose resides in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania. In July 2019, Foose and his longtime girlfriend, Jacey Fugate, had a son named Kimetrius Jr.[32][33][34]

Foose cites his own song "Red Roses" as his personal favorite song, referring to the musical combination with him and Landon Cube as "epic".[35] Foose uses his social media solely for promoting his music, claiming he does so in order to "not live my life through the internet".[36] He cites Lil Wayne as his biggest music inspiration.[36]

Foose tries to avoid drugs as much as possible after seeing it negatively impact the lives of his old friends.[37]

In an interview, Skies claims if he wasn’t rapping, he would like to do some “Bear Grylls type, outdoor stuff” and that his favorite hobby is fishing. [38]

• Shelby (2019)
• Unbothered (2021)