Kimetrius Christopher Foose, better known by his stage name Lil Skies, is an American rapper, singer and songwriter from Waynesboro, Pennsylvania currently signed to All We Got Entertainment through Atlantic Records. His top three highest charting tracks on the BillboardHot 100 are "I", "Nowadays", and "Red Roses". His major label debut mixtape, Life of a Dark Rose, was released on January 10, 2018 and peaked at number 10 on the Billboard 200 chart. The mixtape was certified Gold by the RIAA on November 9, 2018. He released his debut studio album, Shelby, on March 1, 2019.
Early life
Kimetrius Christopher Foose was born August 4, 1998 in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania to multiracial parents. Foose began writing songs at age 3. He was introduced to music by his father, Michael Burton Jr., a fellow hip hop artist formerly known as Dark Skies, now as BurntMan, and his mother Shelby. Foose's stage name is a play on his fathers'. Foose and his family moved to Waynesboro, Pennsylvania when he was in third grade. When he was 11, his father was injured in a workplace chemical explosion at the Rust-Oleum plant near Williamsport, Maryland. 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. Foose graduated from Waynesboro Area Senior High School in 2016 and briefly attended Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania before dropping out to focus on his rap career. His musical inspirations are Lil Wayne, Travis Scott and 50 Cent.
Career
In October 2016, Foose opened for Fetty Wap at Shippensburg University and later released his first mixtape, Alone, in January 2017. In July 2017, he released two songs, "Red Roses" featuring Landon Cube and "Off The Goop" featuring Sprite Lee. He would later release other songs that year, including "Rude" and "Signs of Jealousy." Foose's repertoire of singles caught the attention of Atlantic Records who partnered with his own label, All We Got. He released his first major label mixtape, Life of a Dark Rose, on January 10, 2018. The album debuted at #23 on the Billboard 200 chart and went on to peak at #10. The songs "Nowadays" and "Red Roses" debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 list at #85 and #98 respectively and have since peaked at #55 and #69. 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 illness. 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. 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. On March 1, 2019, Lil Skies released his album Shelby, while simultaneously debuting the music video for lead single "I". On May 21, 2019, Lil Skies released a video for "Breathe", a song from his album Shelby. 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. On July 10, 2020, he released the track "Red & Yellow" from the Road to Fast 9 mixtape.
Personal life
In July 2019, Foose and his longtime girlfriend, Jacey Fugate, had a son. Foose cites his own song "Red Roses" as his personal favorite song, referring to the musical combination with him and Landon Cube as "epic". Foose uses his social media solely for promoting his music, claiming he does so in order to "not live my life through the internet". He cites Lil Wayne as his biggest music inspiration. Foose tries to avoid drugs as much as possible after seeing it negatively impact the lives of his old friends.
