Justine Skye

A Brooklyn native whose childhood was steeped in the arts, Skye signed her first deal before she was even an adult after a combination of raw talent and Tumblr savvy began garnering attention in industry circles. Her ability to quickly lay down a track and her striking voice made her a promising prospect, but absent a definitive sound and trajectory, a void eventually developed as Skye felt her artistic identity slipping further away, regardless of the label she was signed to. Never one to waste an experience, that period transformed into lessons that built the courage and determination she needed to finally break out on her own. In the midst of isolation, an unexpected creative connection was forged. She and Timbaland discovered an organic synergy as they exchanged music and ideas for an audience of the internet before meeting in person to polish them up. In this way, Space & Time is very much a project born of the unique circumstances brought on by the pandemic; the stillness of quarantine allowed her to access a headspace where she felt free to unpack her experiences. It comes as no surprise, then, that this is her most honest work yet. “This is the best thing that I’ve ever done in my life. I’m the dominant writer on this project, which has never happened before for me — I was getting records sent in that I could relate to, but that I didn’t write,” Skye says. “Those weren’t my melodies. Those weren’t my words. But on this album, everything’s super personal to me, and every single moment, every line, every melody, I can tell you what was going on.”   Where previous releases contained the seeds of who she wanted to be, Space & Time is in full bloom and awash with optimistic possibility. “Everything that happened from before — all the ups and downs of my career and just the experiences that I went through — I don’t sit there and dwell on any of it because it happened for a reason for me to get to this point,” Skye says. And with this new album, she carves out both a musical and personal lane of her own that makes it clear why she’s calling it “the bad bitch manual.”