In a past life, most people knew a.k.a skips by the name Ducky, the effervescent, neon-clad raver girl who produced high-energy dance music. But the shift in professional names involved much more than just a changing musical persona. It involved his transition, and he’s spent the last year reintroducing himself and his art to the world.
“Everything that’s been going on lately is like, ‘Here’s my journey. Here’s where I’m at now. Here’s what it was. Here’s what it is like,’ says a.k.a skips, whose name is CK Neiman.
One of the early parts of his journey took place at a rave beneath a San Francisco overpass when he was 14. It was there that he felt completely safe to express himself.
“[Raving] was for the fucking freaks. I felt really safe, and that’s the reason that I wanted to do dance music always,” Neiman says. “I want that feeling. I want to create that feeling of safety for other people.”
Now with this new project, he is channeling that desire to create safe spaces into his new sound. Rather than the flashier style he was producing as Ducky, his debut EP under the name a.k.a skips, Jawfiller, is a clinic in the raw, unfiltered dance music that belongs under overpasses.
Dance music isn’t Neiman’s only means of expression as a.k.a. skips, though. He is a tattoo artist and a visual artist, and he recently published his first photography book entitled i want to rest and be held by someone who loves me.
Each of these creative pursuits represents a part of his authentic self, and he is sharing his authentic self more truthfully than ever before.
“I do feel like, particularly this year, with the art that I’ve been releasing in many forms, a lot of the intention has been like, ‘I’m gonna be vulnerable and let people actually perceive me,’” says a.k.a. skips. We spoke with him about his music and art, and where he is taking a.k.a. skips in the future.
48 HILLS Since your transition in both music and life, how has your relationship with creating in general been affected?
a.k.a. skips A lot, honestly. I had a really fraught relationship with Ducky. I started that project when I was 13. It was the only thing I ever wanted to do. lt was always the new goal like a carrot on a stick. The minute you’re even close to one goal, the next one’s on your mind.
It was a really healing thing for me to be like, “What am I like as an artist with no ties to commercial or financial success?” Trying to get back in touch with the love of creating and why I felt like this was important in the first place.
You can’t take them apart. Giving myself the space to be my authentic self and not worry about what’s gonna come out of it has also given me the emotional and mental space, and permission to be like “This is something I like, and this is part of who I am.” It doesn’t really matter if it’s not the biggest book in the world or I don’t get a solo show in the first year.
48 HILLS Was the constant pressure you felt around Ducky tied to your gender expression?
a.k.a. skips I don’t want to speak for anyone but myself. People’s trans experiences are so different. I also don’t wanna make it sound like I didn’t love doing Ducky because I fucking love that project. I believed in it so much, and I cared about it so much, and it was so deeply personal to me.
It was inextricably tied up with this femme presentation I was really trying to do so hard. “If I commit to the bit hard enough I’m gonna be okay being a girl,” and it wasn’t. It was not sustainable.
For me, my experience of trying so hard to be what I thought people wanted me to be in my gender and in my presentation made it feel incredibly dire that it be successful, and it’s also not that simple.
48 HILLS How does the more raw underground sound you’re making as a.k.a skips align with who you are today?
a.k.a. skips I have so many tracks in the back catalog that don’t align with the sound that I chose to put out, which has always been a problem for me. People try to hack the Ducky Soundcloud once a week, because there are 500 unreleased tracks in there.
For me I don’t think it’s like, “Oh, well, I’m I’m making this thing exclusively,” because that’s this deep connection for me. It’s always been really interesting to me. I feel a lot more free to explore that sound.
The choice for me has always been about what am I gonna put out? What am I gonna put into the world? With what intention?
The hope is that I get to reconnect because I feel emotionally very reconnected to the underground scene that I came from. That initial thing that really made me fall in love with it.
I’m hoping that long term when I do start touring consistently it’s gonna put me in the spaces I wanna fucking be in. Aligned with the artists that have similar visions. It’s definitely a real hopeful era for me.
48 HILLS The title of your book is i want to rest and be held by someone who loves me. You’ve also said of the book, “This is my story as a human trying to find where I fit in the world.” What these two ideas tell me is that when you find where you fit in the world, that’s when you’ll be held by someone who loves you: yourself. So the question is, how is that search going?
a.k.a. skips It’s going really well. I feel like so much of my life both personal and career-wise has been about looking for some kind of reassurance.
That’s what has been so nice, and that’s why it felt right to put [the book] out this year. I started writing it a couple of years before. I rewrote it five fucking times. There are drafts on drafts, and I threw it away and did it again.
This has been the year where I have felt like holding myself through this very vulnerable process. Being like, “It’s OK. Even if it doesn’t look exactly how you want to like, that’s okay.”
It doesn’t feel like an arrival because I don’t think you arrive, but it does feel like a relief.
