2023-10-13 17:30:04
Mike Skinner, from The Streets, in July 2023. BEN CANNON
No one has told the story of English youth in recent decades better than him. Mike Skinner, frontman of the group The Streets, described the blues, the looseness, the headlong flight of young zoners from the great British metropolises: Birmingham, where he comes from and where he retains a razor-sharp accent; London, of course, where he got his start; Liverpool; Manchester, whose football clubs he admires… His caustic tone and his very realistic stories left their mark on rap in the 2000s as far as France, where Normand Orelsan was one of his greatest admirers.
However, for twelve years, Mike Skinner has barely released anything, obsessed with a film project. His new album, The Darker the Shadow, the Brighter the Lightpublished Friday October 13, accompanies his cinematic dive into English nightclubs.
Sitting in a hotel in the inner suburbs of Paris, Mike Skinner first recounts how he came to tire of his own voice, its delivery, the musical signature of his five albums, including the remarkable Original Pirate Materialpublished in 2002. “Fatigue is a funny thinghe summarizes. It’s thought that it can just go away while you sleep, but when you only do one job for ten years, you burn out too. It takes years for this fatigue to disappear. For me, I simply felt like I had nothing left to say. I needed to find a life that I could talk about. »
Because he could no longer write songs, Mike Skinner decided to write a film, while continuing to be a DJ in clubs and to produce music for others: “I started by writing a few scripts, but it just wasn’t working. Then I found the good idea: to write about what I know best, DJs, clubs. I was told that this film would cost £3 million to make and that no one would give it to me because I had never made a film before. And then I decided to make the film myself, it was in 2019. So yes, it seems like a long time, but I never really stopped. » The film, which bears the same name as the album, is currently only being shown on the big screen in the United Kingdom. It’s a thriller that takes place in the English scene, where Mike Skinner plays a DJ, passionate about bass music, who feels neither at home in the daily life of Londoners nor even at ease with his traveling companions, the night.
You have 42.81% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
#Mike #Skinner #band #Streets #return #album #film