Album Notes

SKOOTA

When your hometown is in the rural of Northern California and you are an army brat, you are content with your surroundings, but know that there is so much more out there to see, hear, feel, and touch in the world. You devise a plan to study hard and get good grades so you can get a scholarship to get out of town when the time comes, while all along loving to sing and dance, but never realizing that could be a career option. You always dream of being a performer, but people from junior high to college tell you that you are too fat and will never be what you want to be in life. You finally wake up one morning and realize that all these people who think they know are wrong. You realize that these people underestimate your will, persistence, your passion, your patience, your professionalism,....You!...You realize you are running this race alone and it doesn't matter when you finish, just as long as you finish. And your journey begins. These are the beginnings of the artist known as Skoota.
Skoota has overcome many things to be able to say that his voice and his dancing skills have taken him to places as spiritual as Israel, the beautiful countries of Spain and Italy, as well as touring Canada and the United States. His travels have led him to open his mind about people and situations and about the diversity of musical concepts and ideas. These travels not only helped him grow as an artist, but as a living breathing human being. Being so diverse in his liking of musical styles, Skoota is "able to flawlessly meld pop, urban, R&B, soul, dance, and rock into his magical music(Kweevak News)". He has also been told that he "provides the genre of Neo-Soul a sound that delivers the tradition of R&B music to it's rightful place....center stage(Dj Daood 87.7FM Los Angeles, Ca.)".
Skoota's debut independent album entitled "Step into my World" was produced by music producer Automatic. Skoota and Automatic have tried to come up with a sound that encompasses a body of musical ideas and concepts from different genre's of music and melding them into one. Because Skoota has a BM and MM degrees from the Manhattan School of Music in NYC, He has a handle on writing music. He has been writing music since the age of 16. The album represents Skoota in a way that has let him express his diverseness, his passion, his soulful voice, his feelings of joy and pain, and mostly his determination and persistence. The song Intertwined on the album has won Honorable Mention at the 2003 John Lennon Songwriting Competition.
He has finished touring with the Broadway National of Jesus Christ Superstar where he was chosen as the Jesus understudy for the Rocker Sebastian Bach, formerly of the rock band Skid Row where he then took over the role. He has also sung with the legendary Carly Simon. If you want to know more about Skoota, go to his web site www.myspace.com/lawrenceskootacummings, where he gets over 2,000 visitors a month. The power and passion of Skoota's soulful voice, performance, and "original innovative songs"(Kweevak News) will have you up and dancing at times and at others deeply moved.