Here at Life of Dad we connect with so many fathers from all walks of life. We share our stories, interests and passions. One of our great friends here at Life of Dad is Jeff Bogle. He has a fantastic website called Out With The Kids. He writes about fatherhood, travel and so much more. He also has a podcast called The OWTK Music Monthly Podcast where he showcases the best of the best in Kindie Music. Jeff told me about an artist called Secret Agent 23 Skidoo.

With just one listen to his music I was hooked. Skidoo’s music is energetic, family friendly and will be a hit in your household. As he stated on his website his music is that the core of 23 Skidooʼs music is the celebration of creativity, exploration, adventure and especially diversity. A sworn defender of the wild and weird, he takes families on cerebral vacations into realms of crazy imagination backed by thumping basslines and heavy horn sections that wear out the dance floor.  This is truly the only music that will satisfy both a 3 year old and a 13 year old, and still get the thumbs up from a 30 year old rap aficionado. Secret Agent 23 Skidoo brings together families and Hip Hop without compromising either one.

I had the great fortune to sit down and chat with Skidoo about winning a Grammy, working with his daughter in the music industry and much more.

Art Eddy: First of all I want to say congrats to you and your group for winning a Grammy. What was immediately going through your mind when you found out you won?

Cactus Skidoo: Oh man. You find out at the moment. You find out when they are on stage saying the name. People asked me that. They say so when did you know? I say you know right then. You don’t know until the moment that they are saying it.

We got nominated on the previous album. I had already have gone through that trip of going down there and sitting in the audience and waiting while all the five names are up there and everything. The weird thing was that we were down there this time again and it is so strange to be in that situation and the thing you don’t want to happen happened. You are trying to convince yourself that this is the time.

As they rolled up to saying the names I was super nervous. My knee is bouncing. I am breathing hard. My heart it beating. Then they said my name. Then everything got real cool. I felt totally in the zone. We went up there and I had my speech that I wanted to do. I wanted to thank everybody. I saw how quickly they were playing people off. I was like I basically have to be an auctioneer with this thing. It was great. I had my daughter right next to me. We walked up there together. I had some friends that worked on the album with me. My daughter is up there holding the Grammy. I ran through the speech. I got right to the last person and they are already playing me off. So it was perfect.

AE: I love how your family is part of your group. Your daughter, Saki raps with you on many of your songs. For me when my daughters and I share a love for something it makes our bond stronger. How has working with her on your music create a stronger relationship with her?

CS: One of the funniest things that I learned and this is more recent actually was when we went down to the Grammys. There is a show a day before the actual ceremony, which speaks a lot to our genre, to our group of talented group of musicians. Every year there is a show where all the nominees in our category do a show together. We each do a few songs. The whole thing goes to charity. This year it went to buying kids instruments so they can have music in schools, which is lacking now more than ever.

It is cool that all the nominees are stoked to see each other and are stoked to play with each other. It is pretty beautiful to be in a scene where it is a competition because it is the Grammys, but it is so friendly that everyone is so stoked to see each other. Mindy from Sirius XM was there. She was covering the whole event and doing interviews. She interviewed myself and my daughter. She asked my daughter what it has been like these years being on tour with your dad and seeing the progression of the songs.

I turned to my daughter riveted because I have wanted to know this for ten years now. There are things that you can’t ask because you are too close to see them correctly. She said that if you really put your mind to something you can accomplish amazing things as long as you put the time and energy and to be disciplined about it. It also has showed me that if I want to go into a creative field in life and something that is non-traditional that my dad is going to support me in that as long as I put enough time to be excellent at it.

I am just sitting here being blown away. You try to reach your kid stuff and you are convinced that nothing is sinking in. Then they turn and do something like that and you are like oh my God the whole thing worked. That is part of it. It is just that when sometimes when you are a tree and they are a tree you can’t see the forest. Every now and then you get the glimpse of what is really going on. It is so much more beautiful and positive. It is so much more than you wanted it to be then the chaos of every day child raising.

AE: Following you on social media I see a lot of your fans reach out to you saying how they appreciate your music. From an artist perspective do you feel more pressure now when you are working on a new album?

CS: I think the smart thing and I don’t think I intentionally did it this way because it was a smart thing, but I think I did it this way because musically I am schizophrenic. I like to change influences and approach lyrically and so every album in my mind has been pretty different. In other people’s mind they can probably see a consistent arc to it. Every time that I am making an album I am attempting to switch things up a lot.

A lot of my other albums have been more direct with some of the positive messaging.  On my last album I had a song called Imaginary Friend. It is a lot more about storytelling. It embraces the idea of this imaginary friend trying to convince the boy that the boy is the one that is actually imaginary and the imaginary friend is real. It has this mind blowing, psychedelic, multiverse reality to it.

It comes to a point where what does positive mean? Does positive mean happy? Does positive mean good? What do those words even mean? Then you start to ask what is it that I am actually trying to promote? This is also where I am headed politically. I am not trying to claim one side or the other. I promote the ideas of intelligence, curiosity, love and acceptance. If I can tell stories that tell those or spread those ideas than maybe that is just as potent as saying you should be intelligent. (Both laugh.)

Make a song that requires intelligence, but is also catchy and it says the same thing. I don’t feel limited or boxed in by people’s expectations because I think all that I am expected to do at this point is keep on evolving.

AE: What were some of the first few thoughts that popped into your mind when you found out that you were going to be a dad?

CS: Can I swear? (Both laugh.) I was like oh s#1t. (Both laugh.) I didn’t think I was ready. I think most people don’t think that they are ready. It is the whole pressure of the world coming down on you. When we become responsible for ourselves we are already getting a fixer-upper at that point. Your parents screwed you up as much as they did. The world screwed you up however it did. You are getting this life and saying well this is a used car at this point. I am just going to try and keep it running well.

When you get a kid it is like getting a brand new one. It is pristine. If anyone is going to mess up it is going to be you. It really puts a lot of your beliefs and life techniques under a magnifying glass. You are like this has worked for me and my fixer upper position, but which of these things do I want to pass on? How well do these things work? So I thought a lot about that.

I was 25 when we had our daughter. It is not super young, but I felt young. I was pretty idealistic. I think anyone who is an artist or especially a Bohemian Fringe artist, when they realize that they are going to have a kid they are like that is cool man. I am going to be doing the same thing that I am doing now. It is just going to be with a young dude around. I will be like what’s up dude and he will be like what’s up man. It is going to be awesome. (Both laugh.)

Then you actually get into it and you are like nope, your entire life is going to change. There was an adjustment period for sure. I really, really have loved being a dad. It is that fixer upper/pristine thing. It is weird to say, but when you realize your kid has the most pure love for you that anyone has ever had then that clicks the switch of responsibility where you are like okay there is a being here that is seeing me in the best light possible. So let me try to live up to that.

AE: What were some of the core values you look to instill into your daughter as she grows up?

CS: Curiosity and intelligence. Grit. I want my daughter to be challenged. Self-reliance is definitely a big one. We have been talking about what it means to be an honorable hustler. Being a musician you have to be a hustler. You got to see the angles and see the angles that don’t exist yet. See angles that no one else is looking for. Especially since I have come up in the Hip-Hop world and have a Hip-Hop mentality. I think of that as hustling.

I talked to my daughter the other day. She is trying to go to this dance class that is about seven hundred bucks. I told her that she is going to have to pay for half of it and then asked her how she was going to get it. She didn’t know. I told her that she better start hustling. She told me that she didn’t want to be a hustler. She said a hustler is someone who hangs out on a street corner. I am like whoa, whoa, hold up. (Both laugh.)

I said to her that we talk about honor all the time. That is a really big thing in my household. I don’t believe in politeness. I don’t believe in manners. I believe in honor and I believe in respect. Manners and politeness are based on a series of rules that are essentially arbitrary. Honor and respect is an amiable tendency where you have to look into the heart and soul of the people that you are dealing with and figuring them out.

So I promote honor hardcore. I said to her since we talk about honor a lot what does it mean if you combine honor and a hustler? What is in the middle? To do that means it is to try and get out of life as far as what you want without exploiting anyone else or anything else and without having a negative impact on anything else. That is what I am trying to promote in her. How can you use all of your intensity, intelligence, curiosity and love to manifest the life that you want without doing it on the backs of anyone else? It is a difficult thought process, but I believe it is possible.

AE: What advice do you have for new dads?

CS: So a lot of people think that when you have a kid you are supposed to become an adult. To become an adult a lot of people at previous examples of their life whether it is their dad or more stereotypical things like you said like keeping up with the Joneses mainstream adult ideas.

What I try to tell people is that you have to focus on what makes you really happy. If you try to become this adult and it makes you grumpy and depressed is that really doing the best thing for your kid? Is being a grumpy and depressed person that they are going to look up to and emulate really a gift? Is doing what you love and being an honorable hustler and showing them that you don’t have to give up something you love for someone you love and combine those loves a better gift?

Life of Dad Quick Five

AE: Do you guys have a favorite family movie that you all love to watch together?

CS: Inside Out.

AE: Do you guys have a favorite song that you all like to sing to or dance to as a family?

CS: There are a few certain riffs from Adventure Time that we like a lot. My daughters will turn me on to music that is good. We love Beyoncé. Weight In Gold by Gallant is amazing.

AE: Describe the perfect family vacation.

CS: To be honest it is not so much about where we go, but what is happening in our lives leading up before our vacation. We realized that we almost need to decompress before we go on vacation. Life is stressful. I am what you might call a small business owner. My wife is a Yoga teacher/Meditation leader. So she is a small business owner. My daughter is very driven in school and in dancing. A lot of the times when we go on vacation the first few days we are decompressing and trying to get out of stress mode. We just take a few days beforehand to calm down and then wherever we go it will be beautiful.

AE: The first album you purchased was?

CS: Album, Thriller. First cassette tape, Run DMC.

AE: Which artist would you love to team up to do a song together?

CS: I feel like a lot of the people that I hold up in the highest esteem at least musically are on the Daptone Label. Like the Daptone Horns or the Menahan Street Band. It is the cats that are basically playing 60s and 70s Soul and R&B perfectly. Vocally I mean Q-Tip above all else I think.

Follow Cactus on Twitter at @agent23skidoo and check out his website at secretagent23skidoo.com.