Mississippi-based hip-hop performer Dear Silas combines rapping with trumpet playing and is recognized for crafting literate tracks alongside distinctive beats. His 2016 debut album, The Day I Died, initially drew listeners, yet wider recognition arrived in 2018 once the single “Skrr Skrr” achieved viral status through a meme built around a scene from Dexter’s Laboratory.
Born Silas Stapleton III and raised in Jackson, Mississippi, he began trumpet lessons at twelve within his school ensemble. By graduation he had also immersed himself in hip-hop, prompting several years of music-performance coursework at the University of Louisiana in Monroe before he withdrew, just short of completing his degree, to focus on a recording career. After an early mixtape he issued the independent full-length The Day I Died, which enlisted production contributions from Claw Beats, Antwone Perkins, Ken Cruze, and additional collaborators.
Even as his profile grew, Silas maintained daytime employment at a Jackson computer retailer; it was there that he conceived the vocal hook for “Skrr Skrr.” When colleagues responded enthusiastically, he returned home to complete what had been an instrumental-only recording. Posted online, the track quickly accumulated thousands of streams. Concurrently, an anonymous creator paired the song with footage from Cartoon Network’s Dexter’s Laboratory, producing a meme in which Dexter delivers the chorus to a classmate. That clip also spread rapidly, elevating the artist’s visibility and prompting record-label interest that culminated in a partnership deal with RCA.
In 2018 Silas released his second album, The Last Cherry Blossom, which contained “Skrr Skrr” and included appearances by Vitamin Cea, Aha Gazelle, and Compozitionz.
