Skepta Quotes

For a long time, men weren’t respecting women. They weren’t understanding Mother Earth, Mother Nature, the Motherland, all the motherly stuff. And now we are.

Becoming a commercial scene? I don’t think people in grime would be happy about that.

There are people who take on different objectives and missions in life. When you grow older, there’s a a void – and right now, I’m filling a space where a lot of old rock, grime, hip-hop, punk artists left a vacant space.

If you don’t put your crew on your album, you’re a snake.

It’s important for anybody who finds success to show other people where to find it.

Even though I played this role in ‘Anti-Social,’ you can see by the poster it’s not concentrating on some black rudeboy thing. This is a smash-and-grab movie!

All my early lyrics were about confidence.

Songs like ‘One Love’ by Bob Marley – they stand the test of time – it doesn’t matter – so anytime I write music, I try to write in tune with an emotion, and I hope there are more times like that for everyone.

A lot of us who’ve made grime might be in the chart, but that is because of the country we are in.

Basically, a lot of people have asked to jump on ‘Shutdown’ remix, I’m not gonna front. But ’cause of quality control, we wanted to make it really big: it’s all about spreading the British sound and culture.

There are different things to wear in different places, and if you want to fit in and show respect, you can dress to do that, or you can dress to show that you are foreign and not from there. That can work, too.

I can’t make hard street music for the rest of my life. Your references change.

I’ve been trying to do this music stuff and work it out for so long… I was like, ‘Let’s do it for ourselves.’ All these songs, we’ve travelled the world – no record label, nothing. We just did this for us, but the love is very appreciated.

There would be weeks when I’d just go to Paris on a cheap ticket, sleep on my friend’s floor, and just do a show because I knew I was going to do a show. Do it, get home, see it on my timeline, and be happy that I was just working.

Songwriting has really allowed me to enjoy life and look at it from an objective place.

I feel like the Earth is a re-print of a re-print of a print of a re-print.

There is so much good music from our scene in the U.K., and I’m happy I’m part of that movement. For a long time, we were trying to do what the Americans were doing, we were trying to do what the pop stars from England were doing, and we just didn’t understand.

I hear all the big department stores like Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s in the U.S. playing hard hip-hop records to the shoppers, like Rick Ross at his gnarliest. That’s amazing. It makes me think grime can do a similar thing.

It’s almost a blessing for a new generation to say somebody like myself went to their school. It helps kids dream, and now they’re getting into acting, football, whatever.

I know that I’m in grime, but I had to separate myself and do things myself.

When I do music videos, I like to do a take, then see how it looks, so I can correct it.

When I was a youth, to be called ‘African’ was a diss. At school, the African kids used to lie and say they were Jamaican. So when I first came in the game, and I’m saying lyrics like, ‘I make Nigerians proud of their tribal scars/ My bars make you push up your chest like bras,’ that was a big deal for me.

I used to think my accent was blocking me, and I hated it. Then I went to America, and every time someone said, ‘What? Can you say that again?’ I started liking it.

When I was younger, I was very wild, and I didn’t really have my head screwed on properly.

I go to award ceremonies, but I always like to be in my world. That’s the only place I can control where I won’t get upset.

The worst thing that happened to me at a gig was when the microphone wasn’t on one time, and for the three lines of the verse with Chipmunk, you couldn’t hear me.

After touring so much, I was looking for some peace. I found Morocco, and it was perfect. Everything I wanted to feel about peace, I found it there.

I was working so hard at music and trying to do this whole ‘industry’ thing and realised that it wasn’t for me.

Everyone knows their wrong from right, so when people are being racist, they know they’re being ignorant.

It’s not just my music. Not everyone just listens to grime now ’cause of Skepta. They like how we speak. They like the slang. They like how we dress. They listen to the music. It’s everything.

In school, I wasn’t like the cool guy who had all the new clothes and had all the girls. I felt like the world saw me as an idiot.

Pirate radio is like street art.

I think ‘Inception’ was a sick idea, but they didn’t do it correctly.

‘No fear’ is a mindset that I stand for. It’s the reason why I’ve got to where I am today.

‘Konnichiwa’ was made because I don’t like the industry. I really had to remove myself from it to understand myself.

‘That’s Not Me’ video cost me 80 English pounds.

I’ve been into clothes since I was a kid, going to garage raves and seeing all the Tottenham gangsters wearing Moschino and Versace; I just always had a passion for it.

A good diss track needs to have some facts in it and definitely tell some truth.

Radio 1 doesn’t exist to me. I don’t judge my success by anything they say.

We’ve been ahead for so long in the U.K., we’re so multicultural, and that’s the beauty. That’s why grime was formed, from this mix, this understanding of different people.

I suppose when I was growing up, it was all about fitting into a box or fitting into a category. You know, looking like I listened to hip-hop, or looking like I listened to grime. You’d see someone and go, ‘Oh, look at that person. He’s wearing that or that; he listens to punk rock.’

I’ve realised that there’s art in everything we do in London. Suddenly, a photo of two boys sitting on a wall in tracksuits with a dog can go online and be considered a sick photo. That’s what we’ve done to London.

I was about 18 when I started making music, making beats. My mindset was totally different.

That’s all that life is really about – setting up the party, talking to people who are like-minded, making something happen and keeping it moving, you know.

I want to show the young generation that success is not something you search for externally: it is from within.

Britain is just a melting pot for every culture. Like a pot for every culture around the world mixed into one. Artists over here understand that more.

Pharrell loves music. When I’m with him, it’s like I’m working with someone that I’ve known all my life, and we’re both there to make the sickest track we can.

I was like, ‘I can’t do grime. That’s for kids.’ – I was 20 at the time, and I thought I was a gangsta, a proper rude boy.

Adele texts me all the time and keeps me in check.

When I was trying to make songs to go to America, to go to Japan, they’d never work.

I think some things that are better for me are not good for other people, innit. They need to run theirself. Everybody should run theirself.

You have to understand, that’s all I’ve ever wanted: for London to have a credible musical voice. I will honestly, honestly die happy knowing that I saw it happen.

I don’t think grime has ever been respected; it’s not seen as a nice sound.

They respect rappers in the U.S., but in England, it’s the Queen’s country. She’ll forever be putting out the message on these BBC networks that there’s no hood: it’s tea and red phoneboxes.

Getting in touch with your life purpose is important.

When I was a kid, I used to stop bullies. I’d get so angry when I saw people being bullied. I’d be like, ‘Stop doing that to him!’

Now, I think you’ll find a lot of rappers and artists are getting girl managers. It just makes sense. The guys in my team have learnt a lot from bringing girls in.

Being in an industry where money talks, everybody involved in the ‘Dare To Dream’ project came to a conclusion to sign it to Interscope.

The star, the person who’s on the mic, always gets seen.

You won’t feel inferior in my sportswear!

I have been wearing Air Max for so long, since I was seven playing around in the estate; I feel like I know my Air Max well.

I’m winning even if I have zero pence in my bank account, because my mind’s free.

I haven’t just come up with a hit – I’m not like a one-hit-wonder – I’ve been here for ages. No one is questioning my ability, so just enjoy the wave, spread the wave.

Even with the ‘Top Boy’ series with Ashley Walters… I’ve been talking like on the creative direction wave with Drake about the series. Making greatness with it. The whole style of what’s going on in London, the sound, is real. It’s an actual thing that actually happened. So it deserves to be on the telly.

I think the grime scene is one of the sickest, most diverse scenes ever.

I definitely think that my vibe has rubbed off on Drake a bit.

There’s a lot of oppressed people in Tottenham, but people in Tottenham also know how to turn pain into triumph.

I think about this every day. I wonder, ‘Is today the day where everybody stops lying to themselves and realises that the government is the enemy?’

Bullying is bullying, man. Even the biggest of the bullies got bullied. And what was happening in school comes from the media, innit? It comes from TV and society.

Every year, I always go abroad with dark music, and I’m going to these places, and I feel like I want a party rep – I want something that everyone is going to go crazy to and enjoy and have a good feeling.