So you haven’t heard of Skyzoo? If you’ve somehow missed out on the Brooklyn rapper’s critically lauded solo albums, or his barrage of mixtapes, or his collaborative project The Barrel Brothers with his pal Torae, it’s your loss. But if you’re a fan of smart, interesting hip-hop, his music is sure to cross your path soon.

Sky’s signature rhyme style—full of double and triple meanings, knotty wordplay and elaborate themes and concepts—is most recently showcased on the album released this past summer, Music For My Friends. Here are 10 things you need to know about S-K-Y-Z-O-O.

He Once Battled Jin On ‘106 & Park’

Back in 2002, a teenage Skyzoo took to the Freestyle Friday stage to battle Jin, who was then four weeks into his unprecedented winning streak. While Jin ended up winning the battle, it was much closer than any of the other contests that the champion had faced before.

He’s a Jehovah’s Witness...Sort Of

Sky’s father married a Jehovah’s Witness when the rapper was a pre-teen. The rapper says that these days, he’s not “100%, hardcore J.W., because that’s a serious path and dedication,” but that “I believe in that more than I believe in anything else, as far as spiritual walks of life.”

He Re-Made Jay Z’s Debut Album

A fan suggested via Twitter that Sky should remake Jay Z’s Reasonable Doubt—an idea that the Brooklynite found flattering but unlikely. But he ended up meeting producer Antman Wonder, who was already re-making beats from the album on his own! So the two teamed up to create An Ode to Reasonable Doubt, a nine-song reimagining of Hova’s classic.

He was Biggie’s Neighbor

Biggie lived on Bed-Stuy’s St. James Place between Gates Avenue and Fulton Street. Just a block away, between Gates and Greene Avenue, a young Skyzoo was soaking up the fact that his neighbor was becoming a rap star.

Spike Lee is His Hero

Sky has made no secret of his admiration for Spike Lee’s films, even recording a tribute song to the director called “Spike Lee Was My Hero.” A lifelong dream was fulfilled when Spike made a cameo appearance in the song’s video.

He Loves Sports...A Lot!

You can always find Skyzoo in, as one of his songs has it, a “Blue Yankee Fitted.” But it’s not only baseball. Sky is a big enough fan of the NBA that he recently started his own basketball podcast called Chain Link Champions.

He Used to be in a Crew With Stack Bundles

Rayquon “Stack Bundles” Elliott was a rapper from Far Rockaway, Queens. Part of the Riot Squad crew, he would catch the eye of Dipset’s Jim Jones and be on the verge of stardom before his tragic and unsolved murder in 2007. But years before all that, he and Skyzoo were both part of a crew called The GRITS. It stood, Sky once told me, for “The Greatest Rappers In The Streets.”

His Fans Once got Angry at Him for a “Mistake” He Made on Purpose

On his Music For My Friends song “Suicide Doors,” Skyzoo had the song’s narrator, a young teenager, conflate suicide and gull-wing doors on a car he saw driving by. Many listeners caught the mistake, but not the reasoning behind it. The rapper got so much flack that he ended up writing a long letter on Tumblr explaining his thought process.

His Radio Freestyles are Always Improvised

Unlike a lot of rappers, whose “freestyles” tend to turn up on albums shortly after they’re spit, Skyzoo always goes off the top when given the opportunity. He does it, he explained to me, to stay in shape. “Freestyling off the top of the head is like playing pickup basketball,” he told me. “It’s like if you’re in the NBA, but you still go to the park and play pickup, or still go to the gym every day and shoot and work on your game by yourself. To me, that’s the equivalent of spitting off the top.”

He’s Written for Plenty of Other Rappers

Though he’ll never name names, Skyzoo frequently alludes to the fact that he ghostwrites songs for other—often very famous —artists. On his song “Luxury,” he boasts that he’s “Casper the friendly, writing for the Forbes list.” Speaking of Forbes, he even did a recent interview with them talking about the ins and outs of ghostwriting.