Tyler Ryan Lee Jordan Brooks aka Skaiwater, is a Nottingham rapper and producer making waves in the UK underground music scene. Their most recent project pinkPrint 3 has garnered over 782,000 plays on Spotify. The #gigi artist also has over 507,000 monthly listeners on the platform itself. From humble beginnings, Skaiwater has blossomed into the face of the UK underground hip-hop scene.
Like most musically-inclined kids, Skai would gain their start, by recording and releasing music from the comfort of their own bedroom on the underground- dominated platform Soundcloud. Skai would spend a lot of time blending different genres especially when they hoped into production. Blending jersey club, Brazilian Funk, and Jamaican dancehall, Skaiwater creates a futuristic atmosphere where people lose their minds.
Skai initially made waves for their song #miles on Tiktok during the spring of 2021. This catapulted them into the spotlight at a fairly young age. Shortly after in 2022, they released Rave, an upbeat mixtape. It gained another version that garnered lots of attention online. From this, they caught the interest of Lil Nas X on the X app. The app was formerly known as Twitter. This gained Skai a writer’s credit on Lil Nas X’s smash hit Holiday. This led to numerous collaborations. Skai worked with Lil Uzi Vert, midwxst, Lil Keed, Xlovclo, Prentiss, and Destin Laurel. This was followed by a slot on Lil Nas X’s Long Life Montero tour.
From there, we’d get a collab on the song light!, from Skai and Lil Nas x, with production from New Zealand-based producer 9lives. They would go on to tell Pitchfork’s Jeff Ihaza,
“I feel like over the years, we’ve tried to work on a lot of music, but it’s never really aligned perfectly. I think this was the first time it really made sense for us both.”
2024 posed to be a breakthrough year for the Nottingham artist. Their album #gigi not only turned heads, but did numbers, totaling over 16.9 million streams on Spotify as of late 2025. The lead single rain, reached over 5 million streams alone, with songs light! and real feel respectfully sitting at the second and third most streamed songs on the project. With four projects, all released in 2025, Skai may be posed to be an artist to watch for a long time to come.
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