Album Notes

In 2000, Chris Adams (aka DJ Quizeen) and Daniel Nally (N2WiSHN) formed the hip-hop duo Skratch Lyriks in Anaheim, CA. They started rhyming together over various beats and instrumentals in 1996; using anything they could get their hands on to produce a series of underground tapes for their friends. Upon finishing high school in 1999, Daniel moved from Anaheim back to Los Angeles to attend college at USC. The project was put on hold for a while as both rappers hit the daily grind in an attempt to get their feet wet in the real world.
However, growing up in an environment where struggling to make rent and trying to stay away from trouble was a common theme, the two emcee's were persistent on getting back on track in 2003. The name for their forthcoming album Digging Upward was easy to come up with, as it represents the struggle and the odds that people face in their attempts to chase dreams. "Sometimes it's hard to get out there and do what you really want to do. Especially when you got family problems, people to take care of, bills to pay, pressure from school, or whatever," says Daniel. "There's no irony to it at all. Digging upward is hard - it's just like it sounds."
One of the first big steps came in 2001, when Daniel met producer Kamal Moo while attending school at SC. Soon after, Kamal (aka KM) would start a record label, 320 Recordings. "People ask me if '320' has anything to do with smokin' mad shit - or maybe not smoking nothin' but doing something else... And I'm just like, nah... it's
actually my apartment number" says KM.
One thing led to another and there was no doubt they had to hook-up. In the spring of 04', KM and Skratch Lyriks got together to work on their first collaboration. "Once we got down with K.Meezy - it was on like a marathon," adds Quizeen. "The shit was pure heat, I mean to think of some of the shit we used to do back in the days with cassettes and half broken mics, almost nine years later and were finally starting to gain some altitude." Now there's nothing to do but keep digging - upward.