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Album reviews Music

The Streets

Rating: NNNN


Mike Skinner (The Streets) has followed the award-winning Original Pirate Material with a concept album, and it’s fucking awesome. As an alternagirl from the late 80s with a deeply rooted appreciation for Brit melancholia, who also happens to love hiphop, I must say Skinner’s natural ability to marry the two already had me by the throat with the first record. In each track, he weaves an intricate narrative around a protagonist named Mike. He begins the story with some lost cash left in the care of his two buddies and follows a course of events that includes betting on football, a sad night of clubbing and substance abuse, relationship woes and, well, I won’t spoil it for you. Skinner’s lyrics are wry, canny and cleverly delivered in what is fast becoming his trademark clipped, disconnected rap fashion. Screwing with hiphop conventions, he experiments with ballady acoustic guitars along with loopy beats and infectious minor-key melodies. You just have to shut up and listen.

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