Skepta (2008)
Joseph Junior Adenuga, AKA Skepta, never wanted to be an MC, but in the end it proved to be where he was most comfortable. Growing up in London in a Nigerian household alongside his brother JME, Skepta began as a DJ before moving behind the mic as his brother made his way into the grime scene. Following some work with the Meridian and Roll Deep crews, Skepta and JME founded Boy Better Know and in a few years found themselves travelling around the world on the back of mixtapes, performances and merchandising.
In his lecture at the 2008 Red Bull Music Academy, Skepta recalled his early years in a shared bedroom and how grime emerged from a typical London stew of dancehall and dance music.
Hosted by Emma Warren His name is Joseph. His name is Junior. So welcome to Skepta, AKA Joseph Junior Adenuga. Skepta Yes. [applause] Can I relax? Emma Warren We’re here now. You can relax, we can relax because we’re up for some two hours of in deep grime insight, some really interesting music. And also, some very interesting stuff about the way you as an artist do business, because your Boy Better Know label, empire is an interesting way of doing things. Can you tell us a bit about it? Skepta Boy Better Know is a group of artists, producers, MCs, managers. It’s a group
of everything that makes a group what it is basically. It’s not just one person. We’re all different in our own ways, so it’s the perfect formula. Emma Warren So is Boy Better Know different from the grime crew as we know it? People who are into UK music might know about crews like Heartless Crew or Roll Deep, they might have an idea about what a crew is. Is Boy Better Know different from that? Skepta It’s kind of the same, but with a lot of crews in grime, everyone’s the same.
There are exceptions – Roll Deep are a bit like us, they’ve got a professional
side to it and the musical side to it. A lot of crews in the UK don’t have that the diversity, it’s just one specific kind of thing. We are different, definitely. There aren’t a lot of professional people in grime. But as people get older they start to take it more seriously and see it as a job. There will be more crews coming like us, but at the moment it is really grimy. We try to keep the professional side as well as the grimy side, that’s what makes us different. Emma Warren Two things – you talked about “we.” Who are “we”? Skepta Boy Better Know is me, JME, Wiley, Sam, Shorty, DJ Maximum, Frisco – that’s the
immediate Boy Better Know. There’s five MCs, one DJ and a manager. Emma Warren And can you give us a bit of an idea about what makes you different? Say, if we come and see you play or listen to a JME record, what’s going to be different about what you do? Skepta We’re all in our own psycho worlds. I’m different to JME. He’s – how can I put
it? – into his computer kind of stuff, he’s into a lot of the internet, HTML king of things that I might not know about. I’m a bit more wayward and wild than him. Then you’ve got Wiley, he’s on his own crazy side, Shorty’s on the crazy side, Frisco. We’re all different and when you listen to the tracks you can hear the different kind of ideas we’ve got going on in our brains. Emma Warren JME’s your brother, right? Skepta My younger brother. Emma Warren What happens when you two come together, were there tussles over the kitchen
table about who has this mixtape or whatever? Skepta No, surprisingly me and my brother, obviously there are disagreements, but there’s no
fighting or arguments like that. I think it’s good having JME; he’s my younger brother, but he wants to be better than me and I want to be better than him, so the competition’s always there. We always shared the same bedroom since we were young and the computers in there. So as soon as I get up I want to be
on there making a track. He’ll be in the chair, making another track. It’s
good, I don’t think there’s another brothers-in-grime crew like us two. Emma Warren “Brothers in grime” is a headline that will be used at some point, I imagine. So when you two were growing up, your bedroom must have been a bit of a grime headquarters, because your brother was designing covers for other people, as well as T-shirts, which we’ll also talk about a bit. So picture the scene.
It’s Saturday afternoon around your house. What’s happening? Skepta There’s a lot of smoking going on, a lot of people coming in and out. It’s always been like a studio, my room. People come through, chill, say hello, make songs. It’s just like a studio environment in there. Loud music. When I was younger, my mum and dad used to tell me to turn it down, turn it off. But as I got older they started to realize it was more like a job. It could be anything from 10 in the morning to 2 in the morning, all the way round the clock. It’s just a madhouse at the moment. Even though we’ve moved out of the house, but the computer’s still there, so every time we go back there there’s always going to be loud music. Emma Warren So grime should be grateful you have tolerant parents. Skepta It should be. Emma Warren I think at this point it would be good to hear a bit of music. Can you play us something off your last album, Greatest Hits? Then we can find out something about who you are as an artist. Skepta I think this is the most obvious one people might have heard of. (music: Skepta – “Doin’ It Again” / applause) Emma Warren So tell us a bit about that, please. Skepta Big up Zinc for sorting that out – it sounded like tin. But yeah. That track, it was kinda weird how I made it because when I first started MCing, which was about three years ago... I’ve produced grime for ages but only started MCing about three years ago. I used to go on Rinse FM, which is the biggest pirate for grime in the UK. I went onto Rinse FM with Roll Deep and Wiley, and we used to make tunes on the Sunday and experiment. One day Wiley made a track where eight bars were
different to 16 bars of it. So I went home and I decided to make one like that, where the 4/4 chorus is different to the 16. So I made it, took it to the radio the next Sunday and everyone was going crazy. Crazy, crazy. “This tune’s sick.” I didn’t know what to put on it, but MC Creed, he’s one of the old school connoisseurs of the garage scene, so I thought, “Put him on the chorus and some grime guys on the grimy part.”
At the time I was doing it I didn’t realize it was going to be so big. I made that tune three years ago, but still, Ayia Napa, Malia, every holiday resort, every club in England, that tune still gets the same reaction as when it first came out. It’s a bit weird, sometimes when you make a tune, you might not think, “This is the one,” but it’s what the people say that goes. That’s probably my biggest song to date, along with “Rolex Sweep.” Emma Warren We can’t go much further without talking about “Rolex Sweep,” but one other thing before that. Grime, in its early days, had quite a very different production style to what it has now. There’s been quite a big shift towards the house-y, big, electro-sounding music. How do you think that’s happened? Skepta Now, the charts, ever since T2 and the bassline scene made good vocal tracks,
so the dancing element has come back to the scene. The producer Bless Beats was the guy who made Wiley’s “Wearing My Rolex” and “Rolex Sweep,” so he’s got an electro sound going on at the moment. It’s just one of those things. Music’s always changing in some mad way. All
the dance, electro, funky house, all the dance kinda music right now is really big. It just so happened that Bless Beats made the beats at the time, but a lot of grime artists are doing the electro-sounding things now because that’s the sound right now. I
don’t know how it happened, it’s just mad. Emma Warren But do you also think maybe it’s part of grime expanding and growing up a bit in terms of being bigger? Before, in the early days, grime was quite local, quite small, people knew about it but perhaps they only knew about Dizzee Rascal, he was the only artist whose tunes they might recognise. They knew about grime, but didn’t know it very well. Whereas now, quite a lot of grime artists are having top ten hits in the UK, they’re traveling internationally and playing all over. You were talking about the summer holiday
resorts. So do you think the change in the music is just reflecting the fact that grime is now more normal to people, more common to people? Skepta I think, Europe as a whole, obviously we’ve got so many different types of people, cultures, backgrounds of people and all different types of music. Now grime people are realizing you’ve got to make all kinds of music. Whatever genre of music I make, be it drum & bass, anything, I will always be Skepta, the grime artist. Doesn’t matter if I’m on electro, if I’m on rock. People are looking at themselves as an artist now, before they’d only MC on a grime track. When I got that electro beat, I didn’t think, “I ain’t gonna do it because
people won’t like it.” I just put myself on that track, but give that track a
bit of Skepta, you know what I mean? I think everyone in grime is just waking up and thinking, “You know what? Let me talk to John, talk to Barry, and talk to Dwayne at the same time.” That’s what we do, anyway. You can hear all different kinds of songs on Boy Better Know, like the
“In A Corner” track I just
played that was a bit faster than the grime, than the garage, than “Rolex
Sweep.” Emma Warren So you’re saying now, for you as a grime artist, you want to
talk to John and Barry and Dwayne. Maybe five years ago when you just would’ve been talking to Dwayne, what do you think would’ve happened if you’d said to them, “You know what? In the future I’m going to make this big pop tune, it’s got a dance, that Chris Martin from Coldplay’s going to cover it at a gig, that’s what’s going to happen.” What would this imaginary
Dwayne have said to you back then? Skepta He probably would’ve said I was lying. I came from the street to the music, so
my street mentality still would’ve been there, but you grow up in music. I wouldn’t have thought then that I could do that, but some people that liked me for that mentality that I had would probably not like “Rolex Sweep.” But that’s how I keep it with every single thing – so if I have
“Rolex Sweep” out, I’ll make sure I’ve got a new grime tune that will bust up
every rave. Emma Warren Just before we hear it, I just want to get a bit of a picture from you. If you went to a
typical grime rave four or five years ago, a Sidewinder, what would it have
been like? And now, if you go to a grime party somewhere with maybe more of a
fashion crowd or an electro crowd, what would that be like? Skepta In a grim-y rave, there’s always a dancehall element in there. Everyone’s in
competition, they’re all looking for the biggest crowd reaction. It’s not moody,
but that dancehall vibe is in there. That’s where grime got a lot of its persona from, the whole MCing, reloads, everyone shouting when you say a good lyric. When you go to the more trendy clubs, you can still do that stuff, but you get a chance to do other stuff which might be a bit too far-fetched. The Sidewinder crowd’s a bit young, it’s energetic, people jumping around going crazy. But you go to places where people are more mature, they want to chill out and listen to what you’re saying as an artist and how you are. Emma Warren I think some people might be aware of those Rio favela funk parties and seen some of the footage on YouTube, so can you give us an idea of what you might see at a grime rave if you were a fly on the wall? Skepta If you don’t want to get pushed about and stuff, just stay at the back because at the front it’s a bit crazy. I did a show the other day, some people were trying to rip my
jumper off – I’d just bought it that day as well. Emma Warren So this isn’t about girls trying to rip your top off? Skepta Girls and boys, both trying to pull my top off. I don’t know why the boys were trying to do it. But even in the UK... In London, you can get a bit spoiled for choice. You’ve got Roll Deep, Nasty Crew, Boy Better Know, everything. But when
you go out of London, you don’t always get to see a grime artist, so sometimes it gets really, really wild. I’ve stage-dived, I’ve jumped in the crowd and they’ve held me up and put me around. Emma Warren Where was that? Skepta I did that in London, actually. It’s good, because the energy is there. At the front it’s mad, in the middle it’s a bit more calm, at the back you’ll get [hunching forward with a serious look on his face] the sunglasses-in-the-dark vibe. Emma Warren That’s always a good look. Skepta Hats low, that kind of don’t-step-on-my-trainers vibe. Emma Warren But it’s a good energy, though. Skepta At a grime rave that’s what it’s all about. It would be weird if I was in there and no one was acting like that, because that’s where I’m from. I probably would’ve been there, standing at the back five years ago. It’s good. I like to know that the people I’m trying to reach are coming to these places, but stay at the back if you don’t wanna... Emma Warren Come along, but stay at the back. With “Rolex Sweep” you reached more people
than you had with anything else. Can you tell us a bit about what made you do
it, and then we’ll have a listen? Skepta Obviously Bless Beats, he made the original “Wearing My Rolex.” Ge made a new beat, brought
it to me and Wiley. Wiley said, “Why don’t you do a dance like Soulja Boy and Elephant Man and stuff?” I
said, “No, I don’t want to do that, I just want to MC.” So I wrote the lyrics to the track, I put the lyrics down, then we went out one weekend, got really drunk, made up a dance to the tune and it went from there. But I never, ever, ever, ever would’ve imagined making a track like that. Nothing in my brain makes me think that I don’t know what
I’ll be doing two years from now. That’s the craziest idea I’ve ever had and it’s probably my biggest song of my whole career. It was and still is a big surprise for me how big it is. Emma Warren I think we should hear it and then afterwards, for the uninitiated, tell us what a Rolex sweep is. (music: Skepta – “Rolex Sweep”) By the way, that was so off MySpace that Skepta was actually checking his
messages. Skepta I’m not checking my messages. [laughs] Emma Warren So, first of all, who can dance like you? Skepta No one. It was a bit rude of me saying all those people’s names, I was just having fun with that tune. Emma Warren What is a Rolex sweep? Skepta On “Wearing My Rolex,” Wiley is saying about sometimes you go into a club – you see a girl
you like, and you just give her a piece of your jewelery, so she’ll dance
with it and you know at the end she’s going to find me and we can talk
outside. That’s what he was saying, that’s when he starts, “Promising the
world to a brand new girl I don’t even know yet, next thing she’s wearing my
Rolex.” Then on the next track, on “Rolex Sweep,” the arm on a Rolex doesn’t go tick-tick-
tick, it sweeps around, so we thought we’d make a dance where you sweep your
arm around like that (makes circular motion), so that’s why it’s called
Rolex sweep, I was just gonna make a dance to the arm of the watch. Emma Warren Grime quite likes to kind of wear its wealth on its sleeve, literally, doesn’t it? Skepta Yeah... that’s from the American bling-bling thing. It’s a bit quieter in grime. People have been wearing Rolexes for years, but when we were younger all the people who had money were wearing them and we couldn’t afford them. When I made that song I’d go to a club, people would say to me, “Where’s your Rolex?” I’m not a Rolex kinda guy. I never liked Rolexes, but when I made the track I had to go and buy one. [laughter] Emma Warren They didn’t even give you one? Skepta No, no, I had to go and buy one. But my friend wears it now, I don’t even like Rolexes. Emma Warren Your friends must be pleased with you. So if you’re not a Rolex kind of guy, what kind of guy are you? Skepta I like clothes, really. Clothes, clothes. Clothes. Clothes. Emma Warren OK, so I think we’ve established that Skepta likes clothes. Just tell us a little bit about what the reach was of “Rolex Sweep.” How far did it go? Skepta What, everything? Emma Warren Maybe just a couple of mad things, like say, you’re talking to your auntie and she doesn’t really know what you do. Or maybe you’re in a shop and you said you did a tune that Chris Martin of Coldplay worked into one of his songs. Skepta A couple of footballers, when they score they now run to the sidelines and do the Rolex sweep now. Emma Warren I’d forgotten about that, so tell us who has been Rolex sweeping? Skepta I don’t know. I’ve seen one footballer did it and it’s been seen on football programs. I know Busta Rhymes did it on stage. You know what, “Rolex Sweep,” I actually sat down and counted how many words there are on the track. It’s
21 words. Emma Warren You got 21 words to go. Skepta [laughs] 21 words on the tune, and I’ve been doing music for ages, putting in days and night, falling asleep at the desk, in other songs. But that’s probably the tune where I’ve said the least words. It wasn’t easy to write, obviously I had to spend time working out rhymes and stuff but it’s surprising how that’s the biggest song I’ve ever made. Emma Warren So maybe less is more. Skepta That’s what Wiley says, less is more. Paul O’Grady was doing it with Jane from
EastEnders. Emma Warren Those are British television people, comedians, in both senses of the word. Skepta Sick, sick, sick. YouTube is just flooded with people doing the Rolex sweep, six year old children, big people. Emma Warren You just mentioned Busta Rhymes then. As UK MCing was developing, the UK hip-hop people really wanted to be down with the Americans. A lot of them just didn’t really have their own sound. Obviously some of them did but, as a whole, there wasn’t really a sense of it having its own way of doing things. How does grime relate to hip-hop? What about you? Do you have any connections with American rap artists or do you want those? Skepta I’m 26, so when I was younger, a lot of the music I listened to was hip-hop. A
lot of Biggie Smalls, Tupac, Snoop. We lived the same kind of lives. Obviously
there are ghettos in every country, but I think grime was the first UK
identity where we could say that’s ours, nothing to with rap or hip-hop. So Solid [Crew] still had a bit of hip-hop in them, but
just after them, when it came to Pay As U Go, Wiley and that, I think that was the line where grime was born. We don’t wear baggy clothes or anything like that, so it is really English. Emma Warren I think we should talk about you as a DJ, you as a producer, you as a MC. But before we do that, some people here will know something about grime and some will know nothing. Can we talk about what grime is and where it came from? So if someone, like that guy in the shop or your auntie, asked you what grime is, what would you say? Skepta Grime is England. It’s beats. What it is basically, in Europe we have the real dance vibe to our lifestyle. America is hip-hop, proper hip-hop, but I’ve been everywhere, so many countries, and everywhere I go, even last night when we went to the party, there was a house vibe there. We’re just MCs on that style of music. That is all grime is, it’s MCs, like rap, but we’re rapping on house. Whether it’s garage, house, grimy, funky house, electro, everything. And that’s what grime is. Beats of any speed and it’s a culture in England. Emma Warren And it is a culture;. You’ll be seeing kids at bus stops spitting bars, writing lyrics all the time. For a whole section of the population it’s something that you just do. Skepta Naturally. I don’t think you have to try to do it in England any more. There’s millions and millions of people of all ages MCing. It's a big culture just everyone MCing and rapping. Emma Warren And we should get deeper into that at some point. Anyone who has followed UK soundsystem culture should know roughly where grime fits in. So there’s acid house and rave and hardcore and jungle and 2-step and grime and dubstep and funky and whatever else is going to happen after that. I think we have a sense of where the music’s come from. What about the
MCing, where did that come from? Skepta It came from dancehall artists in Jamaica, first of all. Then it went into the drum & bass era. Emma Warren But the MCs in drum & bass are quite different, aren’t they? Can you give us
an example of what a typical drum & bass MC would do? Skepta He would [pause] I don’t know, I can’t do it, it makes me laugh. Emma Warren Yeah, you can, come on. Skepta No, I used to particularly like
Shabba D. He would do the... [fast
chats], but not all the time, he would do football lyrics, lyrics that would make you think, “Hold on, I could actually write a lyric here.” In England, I believe, it stemmed from dancehall. All that stuff they’d say in dancehall they’re still saying it today in grime. Emma Warren Can we just pause one minute there. I think we need to explain it a little bit for people who don’t know what all this
[fast chats] means. What were those jungle MCs doing and what does it mean? Skepta [laughs] What, break it down? Emma Warren Yeah. Skepta That stuff was just words, it’s like a slick way of saying it. They’re actually saying phenomenon. Emma Warren What about Skibadee and “menomemena”? Skepta Skibadee is an MC, “menomemena” is just a little start before you say
something beginning with an “m.” Emma Warren You’ve just explained something to me I didn’t know. Skepta Like Mickey Mouse, I can say “Menomemena Mickey Mouse.” It went through there,
drum & bass. Emma Warren So let’s just draw the picture in black-and-white for everybody: In jungle there were MCs, but the way they hosted was almost more like stream of consciousness. People weren’t spitting bars in the way grime MCs are. Skepta There were a couple, like Skibadee and Shabba – that’s who I listened to for lyrics. The music’s fast, yeah, so they were just doing what the music’s telling them to do, that’s what I think. The way it’s sounding to them is making them say what they’re saying. I’m really, really into the whole dancehall vibe, so sometimes when I sit down and look at it now, an MC might do something and it reminds me of me, the way he is on the stage, how he might react when the crowd goes mad, I’ll think, “Oh, that’s where I got it from, that’s where this all comes from.” They listen to them. When the jungle thing started, it went
dancehall, drum & bass, jungle. I think a lot of producers in grime could get into it now, because the production in drum & bass is so good, you can’t just do it, you can’t just make drum & bass music because it’s layered so many times. A lot of young people don’t have the time or capacity to start thinking of filters and stuff. Emma Warren Though we’ve got some drum & bass producers in the house. Skepta I respect them so much because they put a lot of thought into the music. When jungle came out, a lot of us thought, “That doesn’t sound as complex as the drum & bass, that sounds good.” Then the MCs were with it as well; then, somehow with the garage thing, people started to slow it down and MC on the garage. Then people went back and slowed it down, then grime was born. Emma Warren So let’s stick with 2-step and garage for the minute. What was your relationship with garage? Skepta That’s when I was a DJ, I used to like the tunes. I liked the Heartless Crew, they were the turning point in the UK for the whole MC-based music there is now. When Heartless came out, Bushkin and Mighty Mo were the best MCs, they were just like vibes. Emma Warren All the way through this soundsystem culture music production was improving, people were learning how to do new things and people have always been able to do new things on very limited technology. But you can see how that worked. Can you see a point in the progression of MCing where suddenly the bar was set up extra high
in a way that helped all this other stuff happen? Skepta I think it was Shabba, from the jungle days, when we could listen to it. That era there is probably the point when everyone thought they could write a lyric too. Emma Warren When are you talking about? Skepta The jungle days. Every man, dog, wife had a lyric. And most of them were copies of his. They’d say, “Listen to my new lyric,” and it was just what Shabba had said on radio last week. It was a tidal wave of everyone MCing at the time and it wasn’t just
menomenema anymore. You could talk about football stuff, because Shabba was into Arsenal and everyone is into football as well. But when it all changed to garage, that’s where the Heartless Crew took over. Emma Warren So you were DJing during that period. How did you start DJing? Skepta My dad was a DJ, he played a lot of reggae in his time. So I had loads of equipment, I had a deck that was grey it was so old. And I had a karaoke machine that had pitch on it as well, so I played the tape, played the deck, mixed them together and all my friends would come in and think, “Yeah yeah yeah, this is good, this is good.” Emma Warren Wicked. One deck and a karaoke machine. Skepta It was pants, it was the most rubbish set-up ever. I used to get really into it, then I started buying records, that was a craze. I got myself some decks from Cash Converters and from there I’d go to every record shop I could. I’d listen to the Heartless Crew and, any tune they played, I’d go into the shop
and say, “Have you got that song that goes na-na-na na-na-na?” And they’d say,
“What are you talking about? Don’t you know the name?” “No.” I’d take my tape
in, show it to them and see if they’d got it. But most of them they wouldn’t have it, because Heartless Crew got the stuff first. But just wanting to be like all the other DJs, that was my drive. So I’d keep going, keep going. I loved DJing, just loved it. Emma Warren So what were the records you were really chasing at that point? Skepta There were bait ones, things like “Sweet Like Chocolate” you could get anywhere. Emma Warren Let’s do a little translation moment for the Russians or the Chilean: What
does “bait” mean? Skepta “Bait” means, like, obvious. Everyone knows it. There were a couple of obvious tracks you could just get, but it’s still garage. There were points where it was just getting so grimy, like
“Dilemma,” a track by So Solid. Emma Warren Do you have that with you? Skepta No, that’s a very, very old track, but that was one of the turning points. Emma Warren You mean that point when garage was starting to turn into the things that ended up being grime? Skepta When I used to DJ I remember a point where I used to think something’s happening here, I don’t know what
it is but it reminds me of jungle, but slowed down, a bit more grim-y. Another was “138 Trek,” Zinc’s track, that was a turning point as well. At those stages I thought, “Something’s happening here.” Those are the tunes that I couldn’t get in the record shops – by the time I got there they were gone. Emma Warren So you were a DJ first, and then you started producing? Skepta I used to produce when I was a DJ, but my tracks were pants. It was all low. I used to mix it in bare low, I couldn’t hear it, it was overpowering, it was pants, it was
dead. [laughs] It was dead, the tune had no substance to it whatsoever, but
I used to like it. I liked my tunes. Emma Warren But people who are DJing but not producing yet, they have to go through that phase of making really rubbish tunes. If you want to get good, you have to go through that phase of just trying it. Skepta I used to make [versions of] tunes I liked. If I loved that tune so much, I used to try and see how he made it or what he was thinking of. I used to make loads of tunes that I liked. Emma Warren Can you give us an example? Skepta I made “Dilemma” a lot of times. So much times. I loved the sounds and stuff. Emma Warren Were you also using Playstation Music 2000, was it? Skepta I had Cubase first. Music 2000, the CD came into my house somehow and then I started using it. I made quite a big tune on that, actually. I mostly used Cubase, making songs that I knew or liked. Emma Warren You just said you made quite a big tune on Music 2000. What was that? Skepta It was called “Pulse Eskimo,” it was like a bootleg of the track Wiley had at the time. I made it in my house. Everyone was coming into my house, my mum was going to work at like 9 in the morning, coming back at 6. So we used to have the whole day, music blaring top to bottom, everyone was coming in the house going, “Oh my god, this song is sick.” I cut it on a
dubplate and used to play it on the radio, then somehow my friend, I don’t know how he got it but he gave it to Wiley. He played it at Sidewinder and then suddenly it went... I had my own track but it
was big in my area, in North London, but at the time grime was very East London-based. So when they played it, it went mad from there. Emma Warren So that was the first time you met Wiley? Skepta I think so. That was the first time I became on speaking terms with him. At first there was a disagreement because he took the track and put it out. So then everyone from my area wasn’t speaking to people from his area, “What’s going on? Where’s this boy’s money?” But we worked it out and became friends and afterwards he would check for me, find out what songs I was making. Emma Warren I know with all scenes from hip-hop onwards, there’s always this beef, problems that can happen between people. How serious are the problems that can happen between people from different grime crews or people from different parts of London? Skepta I think it’s all in the artist. If everyone here is my friend and everyone on that side is your friend, if me and you have a disagreement, it’s up to us whether these people fight. Sometimes in the music the artist wants to portray that he’s a gangster or whatever. I’ve had a lot of MC battles in grime, a lot of them, like countless ones, but I don’t ever go thinking that I’m some gangster. If I say to my friends, you know what? It’s just music, there’s nothing more to it, then they don’t have a problem. But some people have got points to prove. They’ve got complexes. Maybe they think everyone thinks
they’re an idiot. Emma Warren Clashing is a really important part of grime culture, isn’t it? Can you explain what happens? How low can you go with your disses to people? Skepta Clashing. That is from dancehall. If you watch the
Stings, people like Ninjaman, Shabba Ranks, one of the best clashes ever. It comes from that kind of vibe. I’m an MC, I’m gonna say I’m better than you, you’re gonna say you’re better than me, then we might diss each other’s trainers, clothes, tracks. Then it goes, goes, goes – normally it stops at
mum. If someone says mum. Your mum looks like Shrek, or someone. Then that’s it, the microphones go down, everything stops and it goes mad. Emma Warren So what else is off-limits? Skepta I think it’s mum, really. Dads can pass, you can phone your dad and tell him someone’s just said something about him on radio. He might come down. Emma Warren Has your dad ever come down? Skepta No, no, no. Emma Warren Has anyone’s dad ever come down? Skepta Some dads have been involved in the beefs before. The mum part is where it gets... Sisters. I’ve
heard sisters before and they’ve slid through, but mums never get slid through, ever ever ever. I don’t know why. But it’s been like that ever since school. Mum’s always been an argument-finisher from years ago. Emma Warren It’s pretty much the standard way to just say, “Let’s just fight.” Talking of
which, your brother’s “Punch In the Face” tune is quite big at the moment. What’s he saying on that record? Skepta Everywhere you go there’s gun violence and knife violence and he’s saying it’s a bit cowardly. Everyone wants to stab or shoot but nobody wants to punch, stand there right and have a fight. That’s something that’s missing now and it’s just going crazy. Nobody should fight, everyone should live in harmony in a perfect world, but everyone argues
and there’s nothing wrong with having a fight. You stop and shake hands when it’s over. If the anger got to you to that extent where you felt you needed to lash out, then have a fight; but it’s gone crazy with the gun and the knife crime. He’s just saying nobody wants to punch someone in the face and
everyone’s a coward – not everyone, but a lot of people. Emma Warren So between you, you’re covering both spectrums because you’ve got tunes like “Nokia Charger Wire” and he’s got tunes like that. Do you ever have those conversations about the sort of things you’re talking about? Can you tell us about “Nokia Charger Wire”? Skepta “Nokia Charger Wire” is... it’s basically, me as a person, I’m a cool guy, down-to-earth. I don’t think I’m big. I’ve got
different types of tunes that will show different sides of me. Sometimes I’m happy,
sometimes I’m in a club, sometimes I’m sad, sometimes I’m angry. “Nokia Charger Wire” was one of my angry tunes, just saying some MCs have taken it too far. It’s gone too far to turn around, that’s what it is about. Emma Warren Do you have that tune with you? Skepta Yeah, it’s on my MySpace actually. This is a little bit of my Michael Jackson singing-style music. (music: Skepta – “Nokia Charger Wire”) Emma Warren I wanted to ask you about lyrics, because there’s a culture of writing lyrics for hundreds of thousands of kids in the UK where they’re writing really fucking clever stuff. Can you tell us how you build your lyrics? Skepta I try to write so everyone can understand me. There are some MCs in the world that can get a pen and a paper and write lyric right now, but I can’t do that. I try to go about my business, you know, and if I notice something or something comes into my mind. It might be something from a long time ago that I just remembered, then I might just write a lyric that everyone can understand me. Emma Warren So where did the idea for the image of the Nokia charger wire come from? Skepta [pause] Alright, let’s not play around. What I’m trying to say is I want a weapon as long as a Nokia charger wire. I don’t think there is one that long. Emma Warren It would be quite hard to conceal. Skepta A Nokia charger wire is probably a bit longer than this table, about as tall as me. So I wanted to make a cartoon for myself, say something that was so surreal so people would find it funny but at the same time take me seriously. Emma Warren There’s a Kode9 tune “Skeng” as well, isn’t there? Which is just repetition of the word “skeng.” [says it in deep Jamaican voice] I really shouldn’t do stuff like that because I sound so terrible. We should do a bit of like a slang translation throughout. Skepta There’s a slang dictionary on the internet. Emma Warren Yeah there are a few different ones. Maybe words that come up regularly in grime tunes, often people haven’t got a clue what they mean. Tell you what, can you tell us what they mean? What is a “waste man”? Skepta A waste man, that’s what it is. A waste man. Emma Warren One more level of explanation. Skepta A waste man is someone who’s just waste. Just an idiot. A waste of space, a waste of breath. They’re just a waste man. D’you know what I mean? Emma Warren I feel sorry for the girls. Because the feminine equivalent of a waste man is? Skepta What, a waste girl? Emma Warren There’s one worse isn’t there? Skepta I don’t know. Emma Warren OK, let’s not go there because there is. What about “floss”? Skepta To floss is to... to stunt. To show off. You can floss jewelery, you can floss clothes, you
can even floss your girl. You can floss something you own, that’s what it
means. Emma Warren So flossing. OK. What about “greazee”? Skepta Greazee means grimy, that’s the best way to explain it. To be greazee is to be like grimy, to be like ghettoish. Emma Warren I suppose hard-bodied would fall into the same area. Skepta [laughs] You’re making me laugh. Yeah, that’s what it means. Emma Warren And what do you find yourself saying a lot? Apart from “a lot,” that’s another
one. Skepta What do I say a lot? There’s a new one going around which is... And what do you find yourself saying a lot? Apart from “a lot,” that’s another “par.” I shouldn’t have said it because a par is anything, it can be anything you want. Sometimes I’m with someone who’s not from my particular area, someone who
doesn’t know, and they’re so lost when we’re talking. A nice girl will be, “Oh my gosh, she’s a par.” Or if I give you the microphone [pulls it away as Emma tries to grab it], that’s a par. Emma Warren I thought that was a par, I didn’t know it could be used other ways. Skepta If I’m walking with my friend, I’m parring with him. It can mean anything, it’s a mad word. I don’t know what happened to it. A nice girl can be a par or an ugly girl can be a par. “Oh my god she’s a par, why you walking with her.” Or, “Oh my god, she’s a par.” That word is sick. Emma Warren So it’s almost like punctuation, like when you put “still” at the end. Skepta I say “still” a lot, but for no reason, like, “I’m hungry still.” Emma Warren But to me the way that MCs use English is really fascinating and I feel like in a way people don’t understand quite how clever it is. Can you give us an example of a lyric that would make you go, “Wow, that’s a par”? Skepta [laughs] Yeah, that’s how I’d say it, that’s what I mean. JME – and I’m not just saying it because
he’s my brother – wrote a lyric that is good. He wrote a lyric that basically could be like a game of pool, like not snooker, but pool, you know. And
it could’ve been drugs as well. So if we imagine crack and a game of pool, he said, “When I started the game, I picked up a queue / Every five minutes I get
two shots / I never get caught with the white in the pocket / I get rid of the 8-ball in a couple of shots / I cut the 8-ball by eye / Because in maths I weren’t a fool / Real guys understand that I shot / But other guys think I’m talking about pool.” When he wrote that,
everyone was going crazy. Everyone, Wiley, was like how did you do that? I know he’s trying to write another one, but I don’t think anyone’s written a better lyric than that in grime. Emma Warren That’s the thing, writing a lyric that the general public think is about pool but putting it in a way that the people you’re talking to know it’s about something else. And there’s a lot of that in grime isn’t there? Skepta People have tried to write others but they’re not as good. When he said, “Never get caught with the white in the pocket,” I just thought, yeah. You don’t just write that. It’s deep thought. It’s only eight bars, but it’s
deep thought. There’s a lot of people that do mad stuff with lyrics. Emma Warren Can you tell us where the term “certain mans” is used? Skepta When you go to write a lyric you have someone in mind, do you know what I mean? It could be Tony Blair, it could be George Bush, or it could be someone from the area who’s getting on your nerves. Who’s annoying you or making you angry. Rather than saying their name, because you don’t always need to show people you’re
interested, you can say “certain man,” or “dem man” or “those guys,” it’s just words MCs put in there without being specific, because it could end in a clash. Not with Tony Blair or George Bush. Emma Warren Who knows, Tony Blair might be calling up his dad, bring him down. Skepta It could end up in a clash, but you might not want to give them the time of day, so you generalize the lyric. Make it general. Emma Warren So you make it general, but what do you put in underneath to personalize it so people know who you’re talking about? How do you do that? Skepta People who are clued-up about it will know. Emma Warren Can you give us an example? Perhaps not, we don’t want to unleash any beef. Skepta Nah, nah, nah. Emma Warren OK, let’s move on. Tell us about the Rinse compilation you did recently. Skepta I used to DJ there, so I used to always ring up Geeneus,
the boss, and ask him if I could DJ. He used to say, “You’re an MC, why do you
want to do everything?” “Let me DJ. I want to DJ.” He said, “No, you can’t
have a show, but you can do a Rinse compilation.”
Skream has done one,
Geeneus has done one, Supa D did a funky house one. They let me do it, man. I was happy to do it as
well. I played tracks that I liked from across the board, funky ones, grime ones, dubstep. Emma Warren I think people who’ve checked the other video archives that are related to your world
will know about Rinse FM and will know how important it’s been to UK garage and dubstep. But from your
point of view, with Rinse as a grime station, how important has Rinse been to grime? Skepta It’s been very important. Nowadays, I don’t think people take radio as seriously as before. A lot of people don’t have as much drive as before. Back in the day, people didn’t have £2,000 or £3,000, so to go on the radio and promote your song was a big thing, but people are getting paid now so they’re dropping back a bit. There’s not as much pirate radio as before but for grime, pirate radio in general is very important. That’s something that’s been lost somehow. Like I said, obviously the drives have gone. But there are some weeks when I really want to go on the radio and Rinse has helped every genre of music. Emma Warren One thing I did want to ask you about was freestyling, because there’s a big thing about freestyling in grime and Jamie Woon was telling me earlier about things he’d seen on YouTube of people trying to freestyle while doing different things, like Tinchy Stryder freestyling while he’s driving his car round, and JME while he’s playing his X-Box, Gears of War. Is this something you might do? Skepta First things first. A freestyle, as people understand it, is where if you told
me to MC about this [puts hands on turntable], then I’d freestyle about it.
That’s from the American rap side. Freestyling in grime is saying a lyric you’ve already written, but with no intention of it being on a record. You’re saying it on a beat, you’re saying the lyric on a beat. So I found myself freestyling in loads of places.
Yesterday when I was in the club playing house I was freestyling, just doing my thing in the corner, getting drunk. It’s like personal practice, something you do in your spare time. Emma Warren So where else might you see people doing it, other than playing computer games
or driving around? Skepta Freestyling anywhere; that’s probably what it means – free styles, do it anywhere. At the bus stop, kids on their phones MCing to each other. If we go to a club, we might be doing it in a circle, six of us, over a house track. It’s just practice. Emma Warren What direction are you moving in musically? What’s coming up for you? Skepta In America they’ve got hip-hop. They’ve got so many states. They make music there, everyone knows it, they sell out, everyone knows their track. I think it’s gonna be a long time until grime really, really kicks off over there, so with me traveling around – I mean, I’ve been to Russia, I’ve been to Israel, I’ve been most countries in Europe. I feel more
at home when I’m in Europe. I feel like they get what I’m doing. The house style, the
4/4 style, the grimy style, they already have it without me coming over to give it to them. It’s in their culture to rave to house. It’s like putting 50 Cent on a house beat, that’s what I see myself as, so I want to try and expand that. When I went to France, their MCs are heavy as well, they’re sick. I want it to grow, I want Europe, I think we can have our own thing. There are more states than there are in America. When I go abroad I try to get peoples’ CDs, even if I just do a freestyle on it, like, “This is Johann, Johann Productions,” I MC on Johann’s production, I send it back to his MySpace, people hear about it. If everyone in Europe networks like that – it might not even be in my day, maybe for the youth, maybe it’s grime or whatever you want to call it – they can be an MC. Obviously, I want to do albums, I want Boy Better Know to
be the biggest thing in the world, but really, really, really, I want there to be a massive scene all over Europe. So when I release something, everyone in Europe buys it. As well as everyone in HMV. Because at the moment, all I ever see is an American artist going, “Hey! Ho!” It’s getting old now. Not that I don’t like it, 50 Cent, Biggie Smalls will always be great MCs, but there’s not enough recognition for people like us who put deep emotion into production. So I just want to travel the world and spread. Emma Warren It’s interesting that for a sound that was so local and regional, you want it to be massively European and international. Skepta I MC over all types of music. I’ll make sure when I leave here I’ll take some beats. If I can MC on it, I’ll MC on it. I hope that in 20 to 30 years’ time, all the good people in France know all the good people in Sweden and so forth and so on. Emma Warren So take note, world. Can you play us something that sums up where you’re going musically? And while you’re looking, can you tell us a bit about the Boy Better Know T-shirts, because they’ve ended up being a phenomenon, haven’t they? Skepta JME made them just to wear on stage, made one for me, made one for someone else. Then when we used to go places, everyone would ask us if they could have one, and from there it got a bit crazy. Every show I go to there are people with Boy Better Know T-shirts there. Every single show. Emma Warren So what are you up to now? Last I heard it was 30 thousand? Skepta I don’t know, there are bootlegs. You can go to the market and buy fake ones. Emma Warren You’ve got some new T-shirts coming out, haven’t you? Skepta Yeah, there are new ones. I want to turn it into a designer, but JME wants to keep it a bit sporty at the moment. Hold on, I want to find something. I made this when I was in Turkey the other day, in my hotel room. [music: Skepta – unknown] When I listen to that tune, that makes me want to MC. That’s was what was happening to me when I was DJing. I’d be looking at people MCing and thinking I need to get on the microphone, but I never had a lyric. Emma Warren So what will come out lyrically when you do a vocal over it? Skepta This track is going to be something crazy. I’m going to think of what I can say to make everybody... I think that’s a good way to approach songs, you know. I’m gonna say what that song is telling me to say. So sometimes, if you write a lyric, with nothing, it’s pointless, because you aren’t feeding off nothing, you know what I mean? But when I listen to that tune, I don’t know what I’m going to say, but I know that it's gonna something crazy because... (music: Skepta – unknown) I don’t know, I don’t know. Yeah. Just trying to incorporate the whole strings
effect and stuff. Maybe someone who’s into playing might appreciate my chords and stuff. Emma Warren I’ve got a couple more questions I want to ask you, but you [speaking to the audience] should start thinking about questions, too, because we’re going to be putting it out. Skepta I feel like I’m on Jerry Springer. [laughs] Emma Warren No one’s going to come and attack you, there’ll be none of that going on. You know, they’ve got things they wanna ask you. Skepta [to participant] Were you the DJ yesterday? Good set. Emma Warren Props are due. Anything else we should know about, any other hook-ups you’ve
got going on? Skepta Let me check MySpace a moment. Emma Warren Who needs a diary when you’ve got a tour list on your MySpace? Skepta Greatest Hits was out last year this time in England, September 17th. The
“Rolex” track has just come out and then fingers crossed my album will be out
December first. That’s my objective at the moment, get that out, Microphone Champion. I want to try and do a big tour for grime over the next year somehow. Take some time out from shows over the New Year. So when I come back it has more of an impact. So “Rolex Sweep,” then the next single – which has been vocalled already, I’m
just trying to think of a name for it – and then my album Microphone Champion on December the first for me, immediately. Emma Warren Any wish list stuff? Say in a couple of years time, where would you like to be and who would you like to be working with? Skepta In three years time, I just want to be, just like, juggernaut, colossal, massive, d’you know what I mean? Working with all different types of people. You can only cook a meal the same way so many times. I want to try and branch out and make connections. When Arctic Monkeys came out – which is a big rock band in the UK – a grime person
wants to connect with them. Say, you want to work with Arctic Monkeys, yeah, you can try it but it’s not really going to work. It’s good to try and find something else that no one else would really have thought about, then you can make it happen and make it big. Then people will think, “I want to work with them.” I just want to be networking with so many different people. Because I produced that myself,
but not every track I produce I want to MC on, because it’s a bit too me, me, me, me. I want to give that track to someone else and see what they’re thinking, like I do what that track makes me think. It’s a bit more wider. In three years time, I want to be free, be on my fifth album, working with crazy other people who no
one will ever expect me to. I don’t think it’s all about the UK at all. Because a few years ago everyone said it was all about America. There wasn’t nothing else to listen to. When Tupac and Biggie Smalls were MCing, there was no one in the UK doing
anything. No one would’ve said there would be a Skepta or a Dizzee Rascal or a JME. In three or four years time I want it to keep growing. Because it’s in Europe it will never die, because it’s in the culture. All it takes is for people to work together. In England there are a lot of egos, people thinking that they’re better than a person. It’s weird, you approach someone to do a track together and his manager says, “That’s not going to benefit you. Don’t do it.” I don’t care about egos, I only live once, I love music and I want to work with everyone. If I hadn’t done that track with Bless Beats I wouldn’t
have “Rolex Sweep.” If I hadn’t said, “I’m going to vocal that electro track,”
I wouldn’t have it. And that’s my biggest song right now. So we’ve got to link up. MySpace is a good thing. I get alot of messages. Someone says, “Can you come on MySpace and listen to my track?” Sometimes I won’t go on there. Maybe it’s the way they say it. If someone says, “Listen to my track now! It’s the best!” – then I won’t go on
that one, I don’t care about that. If you approach me, I’m just human being innit? MySpace back, email. Internet’s a good thing. We’ve got so much things we didn’t use back in the day. You can MP3 me a track in five minutes. Networking is the key word. Emma Warren Definitely, this is the right place to be celebrating that sort of thing. Has anyone got anything they want to ask? Audience Member I just want to ask you to play that “Intensive Snare” track because that was
really interesting. Skepta That can be done. DJ Emma? (music: Plastician feat. Skepta – “Intensive Snare”) Skepta That’s another collaboration that I didn’t know that I was going to do. And a lot of people love that track. They love it. It’s all about sometimes thinking outside the box and doing stuff that you don’t normally do, really. Audience Member I heard in this “Intensive Snare” track, the whole beat and the arrangement of the song is quite actually minimalistic – there’s the kick and the snare and you were like the whole rhythmic structure. Your MCing was totally filling up the whole track. Normally in dubstep or something you have lots of percussive elements and hi-hats on it. Is that annoying for an MC? If I’m supposed to produce a track with an MC, what should I take care of? If it’s too rhythmically full, is that a turn-off for you? Skepta Not really. I can try and work my way around anything a producer does. I think the production should be free. When you’re a producer don’t worry about what the singer is gonna do. What’s your name? Audience Member Hussein. Skepta I’ll say, “Hussein, I like this part here, maybe sing a bit on there, then I want you to take out something.” It’s better that you make the track as big, loud, as much
percussion, strings, LFOs, as much as you want, then when I hear it I’ll say, “I like that,” or, “I’d like to MC on that bit without the synths in it.” There ain’t really nothing an MC can’t MC on. Emma Warren Interesting point though about how the voice provides part of the structure. Skepta I always say the best MC is the MC who can make themselves another instrument
on the track. Just the tone of how you say something can make or break the
tune, which is the key. Come back to again, always try to do what the track tells you to do. Emma Warren So it’s all about absorbing the feeling and expressing it in your voice. Who
else? Audience Member Was there ever a time when a producer who you didn’t already know fascinated you, and you wanted to cooperate with him and put some vocals on his track? Do you even have time to listen, because as you said there are many people annoying you? But if someone would be nice and give you the track, woulc you have even the time? So the question is about cooperation with new producers. Skepta I just love music, any kind of music. If it’s got that, I call it the crying element, it’s to make me cry. Sometimes
I’ll just hear a tune and [imitates being lost for words]. Audience Member Has it ever happened with a new producer that you were fascinated with the track? Skepta Lemme think. When was the last time that happened to me? [pause] You know what? Hold on one second. What we do is sometimes I’ll be out somewhere and someone will give me a CD and I can’t listen to it right there, but what we do is, when we drive to a show, we’ll have five CDs that people have given us already and we’ll listen to them on the way. And we’ve got something we call “out the window.” [laughter] Emma Warren Guess what that is. Skepta Basically it means, if it’s not good, it goes out the window. But if it’s good, we can do whatever we want on it. I can’t find the track now, I don’t know why it’s not on my computer. Emma Warren So if you’re ever driving down the motorway in the UK and you see round silver things flying out of the window, you know who you’re following. Skepta I can’t explain what I mean by a crying part of a track, but it could be just one chord that makes me feel emotion. That’s what I love about music, that emotional part, and if anyone gives me a beat that’s got that in it, I will vocal it without fail. I will definitely write to it. This was a track that was given to me by a producer from East London. Listen to this, this tune is deep. (music: unknown) That is an emotional tune. Emma Warren I think this is probably the point at which we say thank you very much to Skepta and make sure you hit him up with your music. Skepta Thanks.