Skye Townsend,18, recently sat down with website UrbanDaily to talk about her role on the BET web series “8 Days A Week, her budding musical career, and her famous dad, actor Robert Townsend. Check out highlights from the interview now!
On her role on “8 Days A Week”: The show follows six young people just trying to make their dreams happen. What’s so dope about the show is that it’s not just one type of dream, not all of them want to be famous. My character Jade stands for education; she’s in school so she’s fighting for the degree, for the perfect family, fighting to save the world. Each character is very intelligent and classy, and wants to do something with their life.
VIDEO: Watch Skye on the series 8 Days A Week
On her musical style: When I was younger I was a Billie Holliday and Nat King Cole fanatic so I became an old soul when it came to music. Now I have a lot of world influences in my music, I love Brazilian percussion and Indian instruments. I’m bringing in sounds you don’t usually hear and combining with old school R&B. These days you don’t hear people really singing. There are some true vocalists—Beyonce kills anything she sings. But people who grew up listening to En Vogue, SWV and Aaliyah. So I would say I’m pop/funk//soul/R&B.
On what it was it like growing up with Robert Townsend as a dad: I always tell people that my dad is from one of the worst neighborhoods in Chicago. So raising his kids he was like “I could raise them to think that they deserve this or raise them to think that they have to work for this.” My dad and I refer to each other as twins. We’ve always gotten along perfectly. Growing up around him I was a free-spirited child. At three years old I declared that I wanted to be a singer and my dad said “Yes you are!” Of course I couldn’t sing but it was great having an artist as a father because even image wise he allowed me to take risks and to speak my mind and be creative. I think my dad is a genius and so humble—he doesn’t speak about half of the projects he’s behind because for him it’s really about art. Growing I learned money is fun, it can buy you some cool things but it’s really about the work and making people smile. I’ve also gotten a front row seat to seeing how Hollywood really works—it’s not all beautiful, it gets real.
On the best advice her dad has given her concerning the industry: I’m very passionate about my friends and try to help them the way I help myself, but you can’t take everybody with you. The second piece of advice he gave me was don’t share your dreams because when you tell people, you allow them to break your dreams down.
