The Streets broke through in 2002 with the Mercury Prize nominated ‘Original Pirate Material’ – widely regarded as one of the most influential British albums of recent times, whose impact on culture and UK music can still felt be felt to this day.
Four BRIT Award nominations for Best Album, Best Urban Act, Best Breakthrough Artist and Best British Male Solo Artist followed.
“Dry Your Eyes”, from 2005 follow-up album ‘A Grand Don’t Come For Free’, won an Ivor Novello for Best Song Musically And Lyrically. Skinner additionally received a BRIT Award that same year, for best British Male Solo Artist.
Since then, The Streets have released further LPs “The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living” (2006), Everything Is Borrowed (2008), Computer and Blues (2011) and 2020’s mixtape “None Of Us Are Getting Out of This Alive”, and Skinner has collaborated with a who’s who of British music – from Kano, to Fred Again, Greentea Peng and Giggs.
In recent years, and with his Mike Skinner LTD label, he’s worked with artists at the tip of the spear of breaking British music, with acts like FLOHIO, Ghetts and Grim Sickers.
An inimitable live performer with bountiful experience both behind the decks and on the microphone, Skinner is renowned for his boisterous onstage presence and ability to grip audiences from crowded basements to Glastonbury headline slots.
Whether it’s a live-streamed lockdown performance or a garage and bassline DJ set, Skinner commands the stage with undeniable presence and a quintessentially British tongue-in-cheek attitude.
When The Streets announced a comeback tour in 2017, tickets for the dates sold out in less than a minute.
It’s all testament to the impact The Streets have had, and continue to have, across several generations of musicians and fans alike.