#TheStreets #MikeSkinner #2000s
Oi! Lock down your aerial. Turn off yer phone. Because The Streets’ unparalleled Original Pirate Material was released today in 2002.
Full album: https://vk.cc/6jSf9l
* Original Pirate Material is the debut album by the English rapper and producer Mike Skinner, under the name The Streets.
* The album originally rose to #12 on the UK Albums Chart in 2002, and then peaked at #10 in 2004 after the release of the second Streets album A Grand Don't Come for Free. The album received critical acclaim; in March 2003, NME placed Original Pirate Material at number 46 on their list of the "100 Best Albums of All Time".
* They subsequently placed Original Pirate Material at number 9 in their list of the "100 Best Albums of the Decade". Observer Music Monthly ranked it as the best album of the 2000s.
* Skinner has stated that his main early influences were from the United States, in particular Wu-Tang Clan MCs such as Raekwon and RZA, as well as east coast rapper Nas's album Illmatic. However, Skinner attributes the album as emerging from the UK garage scene of the late 1990s.
His stance when making the album was to combine the UK garage sound with a lyrical content about "all the little adventures you go on" rather than the style of UK hip hop, which he accused of being "someone from Reading pretending to be Biggie or Q-Tip".
* Journalist Simon Reynolds identified the album's lyrical content as capturing UK Garage's "submerged reality" as a genre not based in nightclubs. Outside of London in the late 1990s, UK Garage was rarely played in clubs but was instead found on pirate radio stations, reflected by the album's title.
* The recording of Original Pirate Material lasted over a year, with Skinner recording the bulk of the album in the room he was renting in a house in Brixton in south London. The instrumental tracks were created on an IBM ThinkPad, while Skinner used an emptied out wardrobe as a vocal booth, using duvets and mattresses to reduce echo.
* Direct influences on the album included the 2000 film Gladiator which spawned the lyrics to 'Turn The Page', the opening track to the album. He eschewed analogue recording equipment and recorded and mixed the album entirely on Logic, a digital audio workstation.
* The cover artwork photograph of Original Pirate Material is by German photographer Rut Blees Luxemburg called Towering Inferno. The towerblock pictured is the south face of Kestrel House on City Road, London.
* Spin stated, "Mike Skinner, a.k.a. the Streets, could be the most gifted rapper London has ever produced, except that he doesn't really rap – he pontificates, spins spoken-word yarns, and kicks running commentary. Hip-hop – and Britain's equally bling-fixated 2-step-garage scene – has shaped Skinner's sound, but he's too earnest to reproduce their bluster. He's an observant, asphalt-level 'geezer' – Brit slang for everyman – set apart by the sharpness of his lens, not the force of his flow.
