merlinjrrecords

Reviews:

The most common complaint about Original Pirate Material, London-via-Brighton everyman Mike Skinner's first album as the Streets, regarded flow-the combination of cadence, rhythm, timing, and enunciation that hip-hop cognoscenti prize at least as much they do beats. For the alleged "first great British rapper," a few commentators noted, Skinner wasn't all that hot on the mic. In fact, he was as clunky and lumpy as a newswrapped order of fish and chips.

That's totally correct. And totally not the point. What made Original Pirate Material the most arresting album of its year was the fact that Skinner had cracked a significant code-not how to expertly replicate American rap, but how to fashion an equivalent that was nevertheless all his. Or theirs-England is swarming with homegrown hip-hop derivations now, from Dizzee Rascal envisioning London's East End as a Blighty Shaolin to Wiley's imaginative grime-garage productions. Sure, Material captured a moment. But in the two years since Original Pirate Material's UK release (it came out several months later in the US), the stakes had been raised considerably from Skinner's original ante. How was he going to measure up-especially with that flow?

The answer, it turns out, is twofold. A Grand Don't Come for Free doesn't bother upping anyone's ante but Skinner's own. It amplifies the debut's interconnectedness-if Original Pirate Material was a series of snapshots that added up to, as Skinner put it on "Let's Push Things Forward," "a day in the life of a geezer," Grand is a literal narrative of such a day, a story of money and love lost and found, and found and lost, with a beginning-middle-end (or two). He embraces and intensifies both his peculiar narrative style and the archetypal Englishness of his accent and phrasing. If you thought Skinner was klutzy before, the way he bunnyhops syllables on "Fit But You Know It" and "Could Well Be In" won't change your mind. But if you kept going back because you'd never heard anything quite like this-not because he was "a British guy rapping," but because nobody was (or is) telling stories quite like his (or him)-you'll leap right along with him. Skinner expertly micromanages his delivery to achieve a wide array of effects with a minimal change of inflection, flipping nimbly from the song-proper to the spoken coda on "Get Out of My House," stopping "Dry Your Eyes" with the flat "Everything's just gone-I've got nothin', absolutely nothin'" just long enough to break your heart. You can sort of predict Grand's ending, but not the way he tells it, and the surprises relax into pleasure long after you've gotten the plot.

"The most common complaint about Original Pirate Material, London-via-Brighton everyman Mike Skinner's first album as the Streets, regarded flow-the combination of cadence, rhythm, timing, and enunciation that hip-hop cognoscenti prize at least as much they do beats. For the alleged ""first great British rapper,"" a few commentators noted, Skinner wasn't all that hot on the mic. In fact, he was as clunky and lumpy as a newswrapped order of fish and chips.

That's totally correct. And totally not the point. What made Original Pirate Material the most arresting album of its year was the fact that Skinner had cracked a significant code-not how to expertly replicate American rap, but how to fashion an equivalent that was nevertheless all his. Or theirs-England is swarming with homegrown hip-hop derivations now, from Dizzee Rascal envisioning London's East End as a Blighty Shaolin to Wiley's imaginative grime-garage productions. Sure, Material captured a moment. But in the two years since Original Pirate Material's UK release (it came out several months later in the US), the stakes had been raised considerably from Skinner's original ante. How was he going to measure up-especially with that flow?

The answer, it turns out, is twofold. A Grand Don't Come for Free doesn't bother upping anyone's ante but Skinner's own. It amplifies the debut's interconnectedness-if Original Pirate Material was a series of snapshots that added up to, as Skinner put it on ""Let's Push Things Forward,"" ""a day in the life of a geezer,"" Grand is a literal narrative of such a day, a story of money and love lost and found, and found and lost, with a beginning-middle-end (or two). He embraces and intensifies both his peculiar narrative style and the archetypal Englishness of his accent and phrasing. If you thought Skinner was klutzy before, the way he bunnyhops syllables on ""Fit But You Know It"" and ""Could Well Be In"" won't change your mind. But if you kept going back because you'd never heard anything quite like this-not because he was ""a British guy rapping,"" but because nobody was (or is) telling stories quite like his (or him)-you'll leap right along with him. Skinner expertly micromanages his delivery to achieve a wide array of effects with a minimal change of inflection, flipping nimbly from the song-proper to the spoken coda on ""Get Out of My House,"" stopping ""Dry Your Eyes"" with the flat ""Everything's just gone-I've got nothin', absolutely nothin'"" just long enough to break your heart. You can sort of predict Grand's ending, but not the way he tells it, and the surprises relax into pleasure long after you've gotten the plot.

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