A white rapper from Birmingham in England? Yep that’s right. Mike Skinner, better known by stage name The Streets, had a breakthrough hit with the 2001 single “Has It Come to This?” on the Locked On label, as he moved from his native Midlands to Brixton to focus on his recording career.
With garage and grime influences The Streets’ debut album, Original Pirate Material, arrived in 2002, spawning the massive hit “Let’s Push Things Forward” and earning Skinner a nomination for the Mercury Prize. He was many critics favourite to win the prize but missed out to Ms. Dynamite.
NME magazine listed Original Pirate Material amongst their top five albums of 2002 and “Don’t Mug Yourself” and “Weak Become Heroes” raised The Streets’ profile further. The album was also well received in the States, as the likes of Rolling Stone and the New York Times gave it favourable coverage.
A second album, A Grand Don’t Come for Free was another triumph for Skinner, with singles such as “Fit But You Know It” and “Dry Your Eyes” hitting the top of the charts in 2004. Additional singles “Blinded By the Lights” and “Could Well Be In” were also released from A Grand Don’t Come for Free before the end of the same year.
If his first two discs were tales of life in working class Britain in the noughties, Skinner’s next album was more influenced by the effect his dramatic rise to fame had on his life, as The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living hit record stores in April 2006. The single “When You Wasn’t Famous”, for example, discusses Skinner’s problems with dating a fellow pop star. A couple more singles, “Never Went to Church” and “Prangin Out” would also be released from the album.
September 2008 heralded the release of The Streets’ fourth studio album, Everything Is Borrowed, which Skinner described as having a peaceful and positive vibe. It was well received all round by music critics.
Skinner is expected to release a fifth and final album under his The Streets moniker in 2011, with ‘Computers and Blues’ – as the record is provisionally named – expected to be highly influenced by synthesizer and dance beats.
