Skepta

One Liner: The king rapper of UK Grime
Wikipedia Genre: Grime, British hip hop 
Spotify Says Similar To: Jme (who happens to be his brother) and Lethal Bizzle
Home: Tottenham, England

Poster Position: 6
Slot: Friday, 5:15pm

Thoughts:  Prior to recently, about the only Brit rapper I could have named was The Streets.  I reviewed this guy's most recent album (2016's Konnichiwa) not that long ago, and really liked it.  My favorite line of my own review (if I do say so myself), is this one: "Oooh, and when the beat kicks in on "Detox," I want to go creep around Surrey in a low slung Vauxhall and brandish Walther PPKs at other gingers before robbing a bank with Jason Statham."  Truth. Here, try it out for yourself.

From spacey to some deep ass bass that must be respekkted immediately without question.

I honestly can't understand half of the words that he is saying.  His accent is so thick that I hear some bits and pieces, but then I miss entire bars tangled into random consonants.  But that doesn't mean I don't feel like a bad ass while listening to it and imagining myself stalking around that grimy park at the start of Order of the Phoenix, gun turned sideways, popping caps in dementors like a boss.  And then having my soul sucked through my nose because dementors don't care about gats.

But, that track right there isn't anywhere near his most popular on Spotify (I just liked it) at only 4 million streams.  His biggest track is "Shutdown," at 39.6 million streams.

The opening bit of this track makes me laugh, just because the lyrics are so tough, but that happy little synth bit doesn't match it at all.  Like someone taking the Smurf's theme and then putting Geto Boy lyrics to it.  Actually, that might work...  Despite the humor, I dig the track.  Tough and tight.  I dig when he talks about someone trying to show him their Fendi, and he shoots them down, saying it doesn't impress him.  Respekkt.  That 2016 album is good.  One other note about the Konnichiwa album, it won the 2016 Mercury Prize, which goes to the best album from the UK or Ireland.  So, that's a pretty cool thing, winning the best album of the year for the homeland.
I feel like he does a very good job of making the chorus something you can jam to with your hands up and screaming with your people.  "It Ain't Safe" is the best example of that, with the repeat holler of "it ain't safe on the block, not even for the cops," over a grimy bass rumble and light high hats.  Looking forward to screaming that in a crowd.

He can also drop some clunker bars, like on his most recent new single, "Hypocrisy," where he raps that "I got 15 different iPhones but I am so not phony."  Uuuuuughhhh.

I'm gonna give you one more, because I think you need another legit banger to throw up your finger gats to.  Here is the third most listened to track (after "Shutdown" and "That's Not Me") "Man," with 24.2 million streams.

If you aren't the greatest real fan of all time of Skepta, THEN DON'T FREAKING TALK TO HIM MAN!  He only hangs with his posse, and hates you if you want pics for Instagram.  Also, that video reminds me of some lovely "graffiti" that is near my house.  There is a section of sidewalk nearby that is etched with the lovely sentiment of "FUCK YOU" and "SMOKE WEED."  That was neat, when my kids could finally read, and the oldest one threw me some side eye as we walked the dog over that portion of the sidewalk.  Thanks a lot, unoriginal ass kids (and the guys that Skepta hangs out with, apparently).

Before this album, he had a bunch of what look like mixtapes.  2012's Blacklisted doesn't even list track names on Spotify.  The cover of 2009's Microphone Champion looks like my 6 year old made it on the iPad.  But 2007's Greatest Hits is a cheeky title for a first album. The most popular track from those old albums is "I Spy," from Greatest Hits, with 12.6 million streams.

Which is interesting, because it means that two different artists on the 6th line of the ACL poster (Skepta and SuperDuperKyle) both have rap songs called "I Spy."  Maybe they'll do a sweet mashup and then fight to the death to win their home countries the right of ownership over the entire Virgin Islands.

You know what I have been failing to look at all year?  The YouTube artist insights thing. Dammit.  I need to make a predictions post for next year's lineup that uses that.  Remind me later.  Now that I recalled this, I just went and checked his, and here is an interesting thing - top city is no surprise, London, but then four of the top six cities are all in Poland.  WTF? Why would he be huge with the Poles?  Holy shit, this is why, YouTube is mistakenly listing this jenky Skepta homage song by some Polish dudes as an actual Skepta song:

Key line: "You're wearing tracksuits and that sucks.  I'm rocking tracksuits like Skepta." What the shit is that?

Leaving out the weird Polish stuff, I'd definitely go jam out to Skepta in the park in October. "IT AIN'T SAFE ON THE BLOCK, NOT EVEN FOR THE COPS!"  
"FUCK THAT I AIN'T A CHIPPENDALE!"
"KONNICHIWA BITCHEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!"

Ah, except that now that the schedule has been released, and I'm going to see Royal Blood. That sucks, even worse than you wearing tracksuits.