Words matter. These are the best Skepta Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
There’s a lot of oppressed people in Tottenham, but people in Tottenham also know how to turn pain into triumph.
When I was younger, I was an aggressive fighter but I’m growing into someone who understands we don’t have to answer things with violence.
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!
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 don’t know what I’m going to end up doing, but its definitely in the right direction for freedom and truth.
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 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.’
‘That’s Not Me’ video cost me 80 English pounds.
The star, the person who’s on the mic, always gets seen.
It’s important for anybody who finds success to show other people where to find it.
I want to show the young generation that success is not something you search for externally: it is from within.
Everything makes sense to me in Lagos; I even understand myself.
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.
‘Konnichiwa’ was made because I don’t like the industry. I really had to remove myself from it to understand myself.
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.
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.
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.
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.
When I was younger, I was very wild, and I didn’t really have my head screwed on properly.
Pirate radio is like street art.
You won’t feel inferior in my sportswear!
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.
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.
When I was trying to make songs to go to America, to go to Japan, they’d never work.
I am blessed to have been able to travel the world doing what I do.
It took a long time for hip-hop to become commercial. Now there’s all these big black icons that came from nowhere to somewhere. Look at Jay-Z! People stopped being threatened by the music and just started to appreciate that it’s good.
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.
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!’
Being in an industry where money talks, everybody involved in the ‘Dare To Dream’ project came to a conclusion to sign it to Interscope.
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.
Boy Better Know, when we die, people are going to realise that we are just seven guys who just, like, try to have fun.
I’m from the street, but I’m not a street head. I’m not one of those guys who believe that life is about the street. I’m nerdy at heart, man.
At every stage of my life, I’ve always wanted to do good for Earth.
A lot of us who’ve made grime might be in the chart, but that is because of the country we are in.
In this music industry, you’ll find the differences with artists. You get some people who really love music… and you get people who do this because they want to have money or want to be famous.
When I do music videos, I like to do a take, then see how it looks, so I can correct it.
I feel like I’m the chosen one, but I chose myself.
I don’t think grime has ever been respected; it’s not seen as a nice sound.
I’m paranoid of people hating on me.
I’m not gonna ever announce that I’m going to do an album again. Waking up with that on your head almost doesn’t allow you to make the best album you can.
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.
Thank you to everybody who was there for me when I was going through depressed times.
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.
If you don’t put your crew on your album, you’re a snake.
Becoming a commercial scene? I don’t think people in grime would be happy about that.
A good diss track needs to have some facts in it and definitely tell some truth.
Some artists are like ready-salted crisps and just do what they are supposed to do. But I’m every flavour in one. I’m one of those variety packs.
I am for feminism. I stand up for women standing up for themselves in the same way I stand up for being black.
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.
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.
I think the grime scene is one of the sickest, most diverse scenes ever.
I put three productions of my youngest brother Jason on my album, on ‘Konnichiwa,’ and that made me happy, to be able to do that for him.
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.
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.
I definitely think that my vibe has rubbed off on Drake a bit.
Don’t compare me to Stormzy. Me and Stormzy are both legends in our own right.
I think ‘Inception’ was a sick idea, but they didn’t do it correctly.
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.
Everyone knows their wrong from right, so when people are being racist, they know they’re being ignorant.
I was working so hard at music and trying to do this whole ‘industry’ thing and realised that it wasn’t for me.