533 views

Nickname	Skrilla
Full name	Jemille Edwards
Date of birth	June 3, 1999
iTunes	https://music.apple.com/us/artist/skrilla/1564997362

Jemille Edwards (born June 3, 1999), known professionally as Skrilla, is an American rapper. He is based in Kensington, a neighborhood of Philadelphia. He signed to Priority Records in 2023 and so far has released two albums through the label: Underworld (2023) and Zombie Love Kensington Paradise (2024). His single "Doot Doot" became popular on TikTok in 2025.

Life and career

1.Jemille Edwards was born on June 3, 1999 and raised in Kensington, a neighborhood known chiefly for its open-air drug trade. His mother is Mexican and from Texas, while his father is African-American and from Philadelphia. The two met in college. He described his childhood as "the best time of [his] life" and has stated that he began selling drugs in his neighborhood at around age 12. He also played basketball for the Amateur Athletic Union and ran cross country in his youth, but stopped playing sports in order to focus on selling drugs. As a teenager, he aspired to become a fashion designer and was a member of the Young Chances Foundation program. In 2013, he was involved in organizing a protest for the program against the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the killing of Trayvon Martin. He has stated that, while in high school, he spent two and a half years under house arrest following multiple heroin-related charges against him. Edwards also practices santería.

He was inspired by fellow Philadelphia rapper RecoHavoc, his childhood friend, to begin rapping. He soon recorded "Dog Food", his first song as Skrilla. He released his debut single, "Green Snake", in 2018. His mixtapes Kutthroat and Gemini Season were released in 2022 and 2023, respectively. He was signed to Priority Records in 2023 and released his first single with them, "Booted", later that year. His singles "GD", released in January 2024, and "Chrome Hearts", released in August of that year, followed. His album Underworld was released in early 2024 and its follow-up, Zombie Love Kensington Paradise, was released on November 1, 2024, with a deluxe version released on February 28, 2025. He also appeared on 03 Greedo's 2024 album Crip, I'm Sexy.

A snippet of Skrilla's song "Doot Doot" was uploaded to TikTok by an anonymous account in September 2024. It was partially popularized by Taylor "TK" Kinney, a basketball player for the RWE team of the Overtime Elite league who recited the song's lyric "six, seven" in many of his interviews over several months, and through TikTok videos referencing basketball player LaMelo Ball's height. By February 2025, it had been used in more than 126 thousand videos on TikTok. It was released as a single that month with a music video. Later that month, he posted on his Instagram account, inviting fans to the filming of a music video with livestreamer N3on in Kensington. It amassed a crowd of more than 200 people that was soon broken up by Philadelphia police officers.

In late February, Kyle Pagan of Crossing Broad called Skrilla "the hottest rapper in the city of Philadelphia right now".

Musical style

Skrilla's music is largely drill mixed with detroit rap and he is considered a prominent figure among Philadelphia drill artists. His lyrics often discuss selling and consuming drugs, also referencing santería and his Mexican heritage. His music videos usually feature drug users from Kensington. A.D. Amorosi of Metro called his melodies "raging and rough-edged" with "something swift and soulful about them", while Alphonse Pierre of Pitchfork described his flow as "woozy", "swerving", and "punctuat[ed] ...with unexpected pauses and purposeful stutters", and his beats as "eerie". For Passion of the Weiss, Harley Geffner defined Skrilla's rapping style as featuring "onomatopoeic" ad-libs and switching between "delicate" and "heavy" flows and "speed[ing]" and "slow[ing]" the pace of his rapping. He has stated that he makes all of his music while under the influence of drugs.