Skepta is back with a new single, the dynamic ’Cross My Heart’ which features Eastenders actress Preeya Kalidas and was released on the 17th October. Chris McKay caught up with one of the ambassadors of grime while he was headlining the Mobo’s Tour Live to find out about his journey in the industry, his historic remix with P.Diddy, his forthcoming album ‘Doin’ it Again’ and the contrasting sides to grime music.

The last year and a half has been completely explosive for you, you’ve had some great hits, what’s the journey been from where you started to now?

It’s a bit mad, ‘cause obviously I’ve always been doing grime on the underground and I’ve experienced supporters, fans, signing t-shirts, signing this and that but now it’s become more. I didn’t have to adapt that much but I do understand that the music I’m making now, I’m trying to make grime very universal and easy for people to acknowledge.

Grime has become somewhat popularised now, quite mainstream. As an ambassador, like yourself trying to push it along, what’s it like for you?

Well my objective, is to really incorporate the grime side of my music as much as I can into the music I’m putting out mainstream wise. Respect to all the artists that have gone before me, without them maybe I might not have been in a position to MC on the radio. Everyone that is doing stuff now would be hustling on the underground pirate radio; I’m talking from Dizzee all the way to Chipmunk and everyone in between. I feel like I wanted to pick up where Dizzee left of, where So Solid left off and bring it back cause it’s not all negative, grime is not negative music, good things are happening. I worked with P.Diddy this year that’s massive, getting played a lot in America. Got my new single out now which is a grime track. People are loving it and I feel that there is much more people to come after me.

Touching on the grime remix there of Hello Good morning, how did that come about? It has been pretty much announced as one of the greatest remixes in history. The Guardian said it was better than anything the US could have done, how does that make you feel as a UK artist?

First of all I can’t say thank you enough to everyone who tweeted Diddy and said pick Skepta because he actually went on Twitter and said, ‘Who do I get to remix this track?’ and everyone was like ‘Skepta Skepta Skepta.’ So I’m thinking ‘why are they all saying me?’ I was doing a lot of mainstream at the time but they obviously still felt I was grimy enough to take it on. He was saying himself that he could have gone to a record label, could have easily phoned up his PR or his assistant and say get me a remix through the label but he didn’t want to do that. He wanted to be as organic as possible get it through the people who like grime and they said me. I was happy, at the time I felt like I had the whole UK on my shoulders, they’re expecting Skepta to represent I hope they like it. The tune can get played in a car, in the hood, or it can go to a party and smash a party, so I kind of met it in the middle and I’m happy I got the chance to do it.

And you’ve got your record label Boy Better Know, how’s that doing as well?

Yeah the label is doing quite good, this is what the label is doing (Pulls out a Boy Better Know personalised medallion) This is what stage we’re out at the minute, it’s not the be all and end all but this is like my present to myself. My brother just brought out an album, my album is coming out soon. Got it live there in gold and we’re happy at the moment and it’s still grime that’s the main thing. My brother is like the leader of the crew and we’re hoping to release an album next year and it’ll just be grimy, whether the songs go mainstream it’ll still be grimy and we’ve got a lot of other things in the pipeline, so 2011 everyone will know about Boy Better Know.

In my opinion, two sides to grime music there is a nice little pop success way and then there is quite grimy Giggs-esque way, what’s your take on that do you reckon there should be those two contrasting sides to it?

Yeah definitely there should always be two sides to everything. I feel like there is no this without that, there is never going to be this without that. So, like I said, everyone who is putting the work in, in any way they are just find your avenue that’s the main thing because all this could change soon. We saw it happen to the Baseline Team, everything is just grime now, these grime compilations coming out, when all the rock bands start coming out they don’t really care about Urban Artists or Grime MCs no more. Just make sure you solidify the good fan base that actually likes you for you not because the Record labels are pumping money into your videos and you’re always on tele and you’re the ‘in thing’ now. People that like Skepta, they like Skepta, they love Boy Better Know, they like what we’re about they like the words we use they like the people that we work with. If I recommend something they believe it’s credible, they’re not like “Oh he’s saying it now” and that’s it. I listen to artists like Giggs all the time, I like credible things like that because I can tell it’s from the heart, but at the same time I wish everybody from the grime scene that was on the pirate radio the best of luck so whatever avenue anyone takes I feel it’s all adding to the puzzle and well done to everyone.

And looking over your singles in the past it’s quite a transformation from ‘Rolex Sweep’ to your new single ‘Cross my heart,’ was that a personal decision? You seem to be rapping more?

As much as I learn from other people’s mistakes I try and learn from mine as well. The Rolex Sweep track was a definite smash and when I use to PA it I always use to think to myself, “Why didn’t you just say a longer lyric?” The tune was good, I still love the tune I listen to it now and we catch jokes off it and remember the times we use to do it in the club. But I still think I should have put another lyric on there, which is where I went to with ‘Sunglasses at Night,’ and I thought, “Yeah I spitting a 16 bar that I could spit in a Grime rave.” Then I went onto ‘Too Many Men, I need some more girls in here,” so I kept going and adding more elements and learning from the last tune and now we’re here. I’m just happy, right now I couldn’t ask for more. The fans are slowly coming in and understanding, ‘is this what grime is? Is this what all these other artists are like?’ They’ll type in Chipmunk on the internet and they’ll see his grime freestyle from Westwood and they’ll think, “So grime is good?” Before you couldn’t even say Yo on Radio1 they’ll say ‘no we can’t play this’ but now they’re loving Yo and Brap and all that, so I’m happy about that.

You touched on ‘Too Many Men’ there, it didn’t get the success it should have done. Two and a half million views on YouTube didn’t equate to where it got to in the chart, is that a commercial thing do you think?

Yeah you know the Radio nowadays, Radio1 and the BBC is a very powerful network, very powerful organisation and they do help a lot. But the street to me is more important than the radio because if the street says something is good the radios are going to have to hear it sooner or later. We all saw it with ‘Too Many Men’ we saw it with ‘Talking the Hardest’ with Giggs all these songs they are home grown songs this is nothing to do with the radio. Personally I feel that ‘Too Many Men’ should have been a top 5 record. I get tweets on my twitter from all over the world, it’s the most easiest chorus to sing along to everyone jumps about to it you could be in the pub, in a club in your house. I was going out of my mind at one stage like ‘What am I doing wrong? What’s going on? What am I not doing?’ Going to a show getting like a thousand pound getting paid going to put it back into the video. Money I was getting from my shows I’d go back and it was like a big cycle, do you know what I mean and that kind of hustling mentality I learnt from the street. I kept going and kept going until this year and ‘Bad Boy’ I made that and just through Twitter and going on tour with Chipmunk and stuff it got to 23 in the chart, like independently and the radio realised that Skepta has got people who buy his music. Then ‘Rescue me’ come again, number 14, and now we’re here with ‘Cross my heart.’ I’m still not getting A-listed and stuff like that but at the end of the day the fans know and the supporters know what the truth is and they’re looking at me thinking, “we’re going to keep supporting this guy because he’s the truth.’

That’s the thing, like you said before you’ve started out from just battling and pirate radio like a lot of the other people in the same genre. Is it now great to see the fact that Radio1 and the other big commercial radio stations are starting to take note of Grime as a genre itself?

You can see before they would call me UK rapper Skepta but now they’re saying Grime MC it’s getting noticed as a genre. I would say this is more for like me, my brother and the crew and stuff like that but I know it’s opened the rest of the grime scene. Although there is a lot of competition in the grime scene, I do want everyone to do well. I do want there to be a genre of music for the UK that people can see as a way out or off the street, like in America they’ve got basketball, entertainment, They’ve got so much different avenues. In England it seems to be that if it’s not football it’s nothing. For people on the street, a lot of people can rap, a lot of people can make music in their bedroom they make good songs. Without people like me saying, ‘Listen to this’ then what are they going to do? They’re just going to have to start making songs that they don’t really want to make, that they don’t enjoy making. I’ve realised my lane now and I’m just going to keep going down it.

And is that why you’ve kept yourself distance from the commercial sides of things, because you want to keep doing the music you want to do?

Throughout my career I have tried different things; some of my songs are more commercial than others. I’m not saying I’ve never made a commercial track because I have made a couple of commercial tracks. But leading into 2010 I realised one thing that was about all my tracks, I was MCing how I MC on the radio. And when I clocked that I thought ‘Oh my god so after all this time I was making commercial tunes but I was still MCing like Skepta.’ And people who listened to Skepta before can still listen to me now. I’ve realised my path, I’ve found my place in the game, I’m not lost. I know exactly what I’m doing right now if I hear a beat I’ll know whether I should spit on it or not and that is where I’m happy. Sometimes artists end up finding themselves when they’ve been signed and gone out there and by the time they’ve found you the record label don’t want to support them. And those are the perks of being on a pirate radio, coming from the underground; you get a chance to find yourself early. I’m not going to make a mistake in the eyes of the public I’ll never make one so it’s been difficult but it’s good to be here.

Going on to your new single ‘Cross my heart’ out on the 17th October, you must be feeling the love right now as it’s got over a million hits already on YouTube?

I made that beat one night in a hotel, like drunk. Came back from one of the gigs, I think it was the N-Dubz tour and I had the beat in my computer and I was just MCing to it one night. And I was like ‘I want to do this as a single.’ I went on to twitter and I tweeted ‘What singers do you think I should work with?’ Some people were saying Pixie Lott and some people saying Amelle Berrabah, all these different names and someone said Preeya Kalidas from Eastenders. I tweeted her, and said this is what I want the song to be about this is the beat and initially I thought she would be scared ‘Oh grime track I’m trying to blow up I don’t want to be on this grimy stuff’ But she messaged me saying ‘this is sick, let’s go for it.’ And I told her what I wanted the chorus to be about and she sent it back to me and I heard it and I thought that’s the one and you can see from the two dates that I’ve done on the Mobos Tour that once that tune comes on it’s mayhem, people actually go crazy for it,. There is no better feeling than that.

It’s quite an unusual collaboration, you’re getting an actor to come in and sing but it has taken it by storm. In a way is that the new way to do things, you just tweet someone asking do you want to do a collaboration and then next time you’re in the studio another great track comes out?

I know it’s kind of mad; it’s becoming a twitter world for me, obviously the P.Diddy thing and then that. My next single I’ve got in the pipeline, is just by myself just me. I think twitter is a good website, everyone is on there. Obama is on there, the most famous man in the world is on twitter. You’ve got to use these things it’s a new day, some people are at home saying ‘I’m going to stick to the conventional way’ but in these times you’ve got to use the resources around you. On paper, Skepta ft Preeya Kalidas ‘Cross my heart’ sound like the most pop tune in the world. But we gave them a grime track and they love it as I said it’s got 1.3 million views and it’s not even out yet, it’s out in two days and it’s killing on YouTube. That track goes into the chart, and anywhere it charts people are going to know that I’m here.

And you’ve got your new album out soon, what are we to expect from that? Same sort of style or always keeping us surprised?

I’ve got Preeya on there, got N-Dubz on there, Chipmunk and P.Diddy those are the features and that. But the music itself is just about the transition of what’s been happening because sometime I feel you listen to an artist and it’s just about the high life of them. I can talk about that all the time, my life isn’t as bad as it was when I was a kid, sharing a pound with my brothers to go to the shop to get custard creams and a milkshake and all that. But I want to let people know how it feels, what’s been happening and how things have changed. How girls have changed towards me? How some of my friends have changed towards me? The difference between going to show and picking up the mic and just spitting to going and doing a sound check with ears in and crowd and lights. So it’s really getting to know me. My first two underground albums were like ‘Mc Battle, I’m the best, I’ll clash anyone, I’ll battle any Mc’ but now this is about the transition and getting people to know how I feel as a person.

There were videos on YouTube of you battling Devilman, and there were all comments saying, you need to get your singles out, start producing. Is that when you realised, ‘Yeah I’m pretty good at rapping, maybe I should take this a step further’?

My mum always said this thing to me, she always use to say ‘You need to know when to leave something.’ I feel some MCs stay around for too long and how long do I want to be battling MCs on the underground? After a while people get bored there is a new person they move on. As a person in life if you know when to leave and know when to stop something, it’s always good for you. Whether that’s girls, music, like leave in a Casino, know when you’re up and go, otherwise you may leave with no money left. I felt that I was at a stage when I’ve smashed everything, I’ve clashed, I’ve spat underground raves, I’ve deejayed at Underground raves, I’ve been on pirate radio stations, all the greats , every single MC what more do I want to do? And to me the next thing I could do would take this music world wide. I’ve got a little buzz in America with this track; I want to go out in Europe and smash it out there with my crew and leave a legacy.

What’s next for Skepta and Boy Better Know?

Everyone is watching what we’re going to do, ‘What are they going to do with this hype?’ After my album, comes out in January ‘Doin’ it again.’ I’m going to tour it for maybe 10 to 12 months and then make a Boy Better Know album and try and tour that. Even if we’re going to venues and 200 people are turning up, just go back to grassroots again with our singles ‘Too Many Men’ ‘Goin’ in’ ‘Boy Better Know’ ‘Hospital’ all these tunes we’ve been making over the time and more hits, a good 17 track album. Go around the world go around Europe and get back to the grassroots and grime again until we are at this stage where I am as a crew, ‘cause we can do it man.

Shouts to Bish Bash Bosh, Toddla T on the beat, Des, George, CJ and the GGI familia. This tracks is HUGE – any DJ’s who aren’t playing it are waste. Simple as.

Can’t wait to see his performance at Radio 1′s Big Weekend this year during my set on the outdoor stage.

Available for download on March 16th 2009 taken from Skepta’s second album “Microphone Champion”. What do you think – boy better KNOW or boy better NO!?