Computers And Blues

Mike Skinner is the original British rapper. With the charts now awash with home-grown hip-hop phrase-makers, it’s hard to remember that before The Streets came along, the idea of British rapper all too often seemed like a contradiction on terms. It was Mike Skinner – along with his fellow 2002 breakthrough act Dizzee Rascal – who first taught us that the things a UK MC might have to say actually mattered more than how much they did or didn’t owe their transatlantic source material.

Computers and Blues crams everything Mike Skinner has learnt in the course of his very personal five album odyssey into a package as irresistibly box-fresh as his game-changing 2002 debut Original Pirate Material. In the course of this infectiously upbeat, tune-packed parting shot, the sound of The Streets goes back to basics at the same time as expanding in all directions.