Skinnyman

Woebot

Well-known member
Just heard his LP the other day, my boss frisbeed it onto my desk after i came in laden with grime twelves en route somewhere.

Listened to it straight through twice.

Its dominated by those samples from that film isnt it? Is that Kes? Mcvicar? I'm sure i ve seen it before myself, what a chilling picture of the law/borstal/prison? Also extremely evocative of another Britain, that of the late seventies early eighties, one of terrible desperation.

Is the underclass as fucked as it was back then? I know k-punk seems to think so. Part of me suspects that it isnt, that what we're witnessing rather is the "oppressed"/"working classes actually having a voice in Grime/records like Skinnymans that it didnt before. Sorry if this sounds patronising, i'm just a toff struggling to see whats outside my own window. I can't think of any potent angry working-class voices from that era off the top of my head. Punk is almost exclusively middle-class in content, any revolt is aimed at largely abstract targets, rather than making forthright denunciations of the horror of inner-city life.

Oi, the supposed working-class punk, seems more involved in plain rocking and rolling or in procuring gang joy. Shoot me down if you disagree.

The Skinnyman record is gorily articulate. Kind of unflinchingly bleak. You suspect that Skinnyman, and this may be incorrect/unkind, has had his fair share of involvement in making the streets as ugly as they are. We take this for for granted with US Rappers, one doesnt need much persuading to believe their background is as dicey and criminal as they let on, but its new in the UK, certainly new the way it bleeds into the music. SUAD for instance, you might suspect they were on the edges of criminal activity, but they never really delved into/explored it in their music. Same applies to all ardkore really, it was brushed slightly under the carpet, even if it was a large part of the rave economy. Skinnyman, though you feel he's moved into a pseudo-righteous position, is clearly at his least comfortable there, takes this high-ground quite squeamishly.

The most enticing thing about the record, the tunes are so-so, beyond the acerbicism and his undeniable charisma is the completely healthy disdain he has for the record industry and this one particular part of his own career (dodgy deals on the side MUST make up 3/4 of his income!). Hearing all the Grime-rs wishing that their music would "Get them out of here" a Wiley prays on Roll Deeps "Let it Out", you just know, god bless em, that its a fucking pointless fantasy. Maybe on or two may squeeze through, be able to make a career, use it to escape the ghetto, but for 99% of them, if they want a semi-decent lifestyle, they'd be better doing as Dogzilla says and get back to school. Go back to technical college, pick up some useful skills for goodness sake! Skinnyman, its obv to see, thinks British HipHop is a total joke, has absolutely no faith in rapping as a "career" and it just gives what he's saying a vital edge, an undeniable shade of darkness, menace and power.

Anyone else heard it?
 

luka

Well-known member
here's some things i know about skinnyman
1)he's an old git and has been around the scene for a long time
2)he looks brillinat. skinny, with a lumpy skull and thin angular face, and fucked up teeth. bit like me but shorter then! he looks exactly like london. all english rappers should look something like this. he looks like london and he sounds like london.
3)whenever interviewed he keeps saying 'uk rap is shit. it's an embarressment' he also says encouraging things about grime. i don't think he likes the music all that much but he thinks its a positive thing. kids turning their energies to music. how could anyone fail to endorse that. apparently he done a collab with wiley.
4)he's probably as well known for shotting weed than he is for rapping. thats not hotting him up cos its not exactly a secret. he may have given up. he supports a network of youngers involving them in the same stuff he gets up, including the music, mud fam i think is his boys, too so its pretty difficult to make snap moral judgements.

complex character, street legend, not the best album ever made but its worth a listen eh matt?
 

nick.K

gabba survivor
he's a leeds lad, isn't he. I'm sure you can hear it in his accent....

not heard the album, just his old tracks, years back

funny story = my friend used to be the drama tutor for some of the mud family when they were in pentonville (teach them how to turn from acorns into oak trees etc)
 

luka

Well-known member
a girl from finsbury park told me his mum was from up north. dunno where he was born. he's definielty been down here for quite some time.

chantelle fiddy says riko has been doing drama classes at brixton as it goes. i spose you would though wouldn't you. must be better than interminible wanking and lifting weights.
 

mms

sometimes
yeah he was part of the mud family who are a finsbury park/highbury fields lot, they used to do a good thing in finsbury park where they used to have challenge all comers battles in a boxing ring, quite tasty. this was in the late ninetees. They even had a little uk hip hop pirate station running for a while.
the film sampled on the lp is made in britain, which had tim roth as trevor the skinhead, alan clarke film.
 

Woebot

Well-known member
mms said:
the film sampled on the lp is made in britain, which had tim roth as trevor the skinhead, alan clarke film.
cheers mms. those are fantastis samples. bet thats a great movie.
 

originaldrum

from start till done
WOEBOT said:
they'd be better doing as Dogzilla says and get back to school.


and durrty doogz too!


as for skinnyman being from leeds

i saw him n black twang at an ip op gig there late nighties, he certainly looks like he could be from leeds (those who know....) , certainly fit straight in amongst the ls6 crew pretty well.

hey on that tip , whatever happened to the mud fam? (mud is thicker than blood!), i've got a great skinny man & mud fam live in edinburgh tape where some rough diamonds shine ~


(and on a totaly irrelavant tip - didn't one of hijack or gunshot end up in the ukg scene???)
 

Backjob

Well-known member
I seem to remember mud fam doing an oxide and neutrino diss record slagging garage off a few years back. Was all over that UK rap pirate, 105.5, can't remember what it was called...

Made in Britain is an AMAZING movie. It's even more depressing than that one with Ray Winstone as a young offender hitting people with pool balls in a sock. Whatever happened to Tim Roth?

Anyway, is the album you're talking about "Council Estate of Mind", right?
 

luka

Well-known member
original drum you are talking about unknown mc who used to be in hijack. thats what i told people anyway. i think its true.
 

mms

sometimes
luka said:
original drum you are talking about unknown mc who used to be in hijack. thats what i told people anyway. i think its true.


weren't the guys who did do you really like it with artful dodgers 'the masters of ceremony', in hijack. i compared and contrasted the record sleeve and a hijack sleeve once and this seemed to be the case.
'don't talk to strangers'..
 

originaldrum

from start till done
luka said:
original drum you are talking about unknown mc who used to be in hijack. thats what i told people anyway. i think its true.


was it you man, i thought it may have been somwhere else i read it, either way - it always seemed a truth to me.
 

luka

Well-known member
mms-i don't know the answer to that.

original drum-maybe you just got the information from the same place i did, the kiss fm rap show.
 

originaldrum

from start till done
hey luka - as much as i would like to see myself "chillin like a villian" listenin to the kiss rap show, i'm on the other side of the world,

i reckon i got it from you - but it's all good blad, i still reckon its true , i mean , why not, stranger things have happened...
 
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