The Streets (UK)

[4 KiN L]

I think this dude is whack.

There aint much good UK hiphop.. I mean.. garage is jus plain bad. The only half-decent uk hiphop duo are Mark B & Blade. Peep some shit of theirs if your interested

exactly who i was talkin about...blade. mark b just handles all the production and blade writes/raps.

now do u actually like mark b and blade or iz it just cos they went on tour wit eminem? i fuckin love blade n shit, his album was top arse...

[Dug-e]

To be honest, The Streets are whack... No way can they call anyone Eminem apart from tha man himself, theirs no way that i would call the streets good hip hop, its garage, and garage i dont like too much, theirs only a few artists that i will make an exception to and that is people like So Solid Crew, and Oxide & Nuetrino...

Their ok..

-- Peace

[=[Euthanasia]=]

Here's a picture  

& here's a little interview I found over at the Radio 1 site.

Mike Skinner, welcome to the programme...
Ello!
D'you remember we spoke ages ago on the phone...
Yeah, I was filming a video...
That's right - it was all just beginning to take off with 'Has It Come To This?' But that track actually took, what, a year or more to get from white label stages to actually making the chart.
Yeah, I don't remember exactly. I made it... May 2000, a few months to kind of send it around.

Was it a surprise where it actually ended up?
No, I mean we knew that it was gonna do well. But no, I mean on the day that I made it I thought I was gonna sell... well, have to give 'em away pretty much yeah.
How many did you press up originally?
150 or something...

You've been into music for years. I was reading I think on the website something about you being a keyboard nut when you were a kid?
There's so many artists that go on about what they did when they were younger, so it's no big deal really. I was just always messin' around with tape, I used to record like bits of Run DMC tunes from one tape recorder to the other one like... you know what you used to play games on a Spectrum with? The tape player on that. I used to record the loops from the Run DMC tunes and just try and sound like Tone Loc over the top.

What was your influence, were your mates into music?
My older brother is in a band, but he had the 'Licence To Ill' album and he had all the Run DMC 8 tapes.

We've been banging on about the record for the last three or four weeks now and it's got elements of music which you've probably heard but there's things in it, like there's obviously hip hop, there's garage, but there's also the almost two-tonesque...
Yeah, a lot of people have said that, and I'd never really listened to two-tone. It was more reggae for me, the 'Let's Push Things Forward' thing... Maybe I just don't know how to do reggae very well and it ended up sounding like two-tone!

Is it 'cos you don't know how to do reggae or are you conciously perverting how these things should sound?
It's a masterplan! A lot of the things people hear on it I don't hear. But that's what they say is great about music or art or whatever.

I think it's probably also because they're looking at your statement of intent partly. We've said before that this is maybe not a record for the garage purists. But garage has to move on this year and something like 'Let's Push Things Forward' suggests that you've been thinking about the fact that music has to progress...
I suppose it was more about the fact that I was doing... it's a very simple thing really, I was doing something that I knew was good, and that I was putting a lot of work into. At the time it was kinda like 'you should be sounding like that or it's not gonna work'.

Talking through the idea of - you can have music for a club but you can also have music for your front room...
I did clubbing quite a bit, but I listen to music at home, most of my mates listen to music at home.
Is this the next thing - Cerebral Garage?
Yeah! 'In-Head'. Special implants that channel the music inside your head!

(plays 'The Irony Of It All')

So tell us about that track then 'The Irony Of It All', is that based on any particular characters?
Yeah, I've kind of been both of them I think. I'm more Terry at the moment, but I was more Tim when I wrote it - 'cos Tim was the one that kinda won, wasn't he? Even though Terry hit him at the end!
Yeah, but he's got the moral high ground on his side.
No-one really likes Tim though do they? There's something about Terry that's a bit more honest. Tim's a bit shady, snidy...
Tim? Yeah, I suppose he is
I do like Gail Porter though.
You missed out there! But don't worry, as they say - there are plenty more fish in the sea and now the door is open to this new life of pop stardom...

Does this worry you though, 'cos you live an average sort of life, the 'geezer' life, but what happens if things change now? Do you worry that you won't be able to come up with the same sorts of lyrical ideas or concepts?
I think I'd just lie!
No-one's gonna believe you!
If I brought out another album with other themes that raised issues and the tunes sounded phat and you could sing 'em all and stuff then... would that bother you?
No, although obviously the same point that not everyone who buys this record is gonna know the places that you've been to... But it's still quite nice thinking, 'Mike's been down the Dogstar!'
I don't go down there often now though - they won't let me in! I used to have to carry my passport everywhere with me, they won't let me in at all now, they think I'm underage or something, I was helping them to sell their blinkin' club!
And they won't let you in! I bet they will now, I bet you in two months time... after that cover of Jockey Slut - you'll be right in!!

One other thing that we just should mention is some very bleak moments with this record, but always with an upside.
Yeah, that's me when I was down but I'm not down at the moment. Maybe I'll just have to have some more downs so that the next album can be...
Maybe you should drop out, do one of those things where people just drop out for a while and go and do something completely different. You travelled before didn't you?
I met this girl in Birmingham and I was trying to make hip hop tunes with this group of lads. It was quite a stressful time really, I was sending tunes over to American labels... So yeah, I met this girl and she was going to Australia 'cos she was gonna go travelling and then everyone just said, 'Well, why don't you go?' and I thought well, you know, nothin' to lose. So I ended up going to the tropical bit up in Cairns to see her and I got a year working Visa and I was just gonna come straight home. I broke up with her 'cos she was going up North and I ended up staying for 11 months!

I suppose that was quite good then, if you come back you're not too close to the music because you've been away, so you've come to it quite fresh...
Yeah, definately. The whole two-step thing, it was just kicking off. I was really into speed garage and then as I went to Australia, two-step was just coming in and I was into two-step just before I went. When I came back, the big Craig David record had already come out. That two-step explosion had kinda happened. So I came back and was kinda into it, but I could never really make a 'genre' record anyway 'cos I'm too mad.

I mentioned earlier on there are places in here which are real places which you name check. One of the things that you're saying about something like 'Stay Positive' - everyone knows that housing estate, it's a real housing estate in your own head, it's not necessarily your housing estate which you've written about or the places that you've written about. That's what's great about this record, that you can identify with all the characters on it even if they're not real...
I know what you mean, a lot of people do say to me - 'Oh, that's me! That record's me!'
In which case I'd watch out - there are some right nutters on this record!

[Jay ay Beee]

yeah i heard this, i was thinkin of gettin this white boys album, cuz he from brum(same as me)
peace

Yo man I never knew where abouts are you from?  I'm from Northfield.

[Jay ay Beee]

I got a story about this guy (yo it's not a group it's one guy)

As lyrical G says he's from Birmingham and I knew this half caste kid that MCed at a party I was at called Baz.  Anyway the Streets had a single out before his latest that got to about 22 in the charts.  This kid Baz reckoned they wrote and recorded that song together but then The Streets took it to a label and redid the song with the same lyrics and everything but replaced Baz's voice with his.  Anyway Baz was saying he was gonna confront him on the set of the video for "Let's Push things Forward" and it was gonna be filmed in Birmingham but the Streets realized something was gonna go down so they made the video in London instead.

So there ya go

[LyRiCaL_G]

Yo man I never knew where abouts are you from?  I'm from Northfield.

yo im near stechford, yardley ends.

peace

[Reef]

now do u actually like mark b and blade or iz it just cos they went on tour wit eminem? i fuckin love blade n shit, his album was top arse...

I didnt even know they went on tour with eminem!! LOL
But i agree Blade is top his flow is just amazing, and he sounds british lol.. its a first a brit who can rhyme LOL

[4 KiN L]

I didnt even know they went on tour with eminem!! LOL
But i agree Blade is top his flow is just amazing, and he sounds british lol.. its a first a brit who can rhyme LOL

he aint actually from britain...he was brought up here all his life though i suppose we can call him british anyway...thats why he got london accent!