If you don’t know Mike Skinner aka The Streets, you should. The Brit rapper turned the musings about the everyday life of a geezer into chart-topping (at least in the UK) success, with four albums chronicling the minutea of going out, getting drunk, breaking up, hooking up, getting famous, ordering take away and much more. The beats have been slick, the rhymes quotable, but it’s all set to end. At least under the name of The Streets. With his fifth album “Computers And Blues” set to drop next month, Mike Skinner has announced he’s retiring The Streets name and that his plans for the future include making a feature film.
In a rather dour interview with The Guardian, Skinner reveals that he’s working with collaborator Ted Mayhem on a film. Details are scarce on the project they’ve written together, but it’s described as a “punchy thriller” set in a hospital.
“It doesn’t involve any kebab shops. Or drug binges,” Skinner says. “The idea is to feel about something like I did at the beginning of The Streets, when I didn’t know what was possible. We’re not going to obsess ourselves with screenings and openings. We’ve just got to make something that’s beautiful – that’s tense and interesting all the way through to the end. That’s the core of art, sod everything else.”
The move to cinema isn’t too surprising. Skinner’s lyrics have always been wonderfully observant and wittily detailed, easily conjuring up memorable imagery. Obviously, the project is in early stages with no word yet if he’ll direct himself, star or who else might be cast in the film. But if Skinner can build an amazingly compelling concept album around losing $1000 quid, we can’t wait to see what he’ll dream up for a movie. In the run-up to the new album, Skinner has been practicing his video editing skills, creating brief promo clips that he’s been uploading to YouTube. Some of them have been pretty sharp, but our favorite has to bee “San Frandemonium” — we definitely laughed hard at the “Robin Hood” bit.
“Computers And Blues” comes out on February 7th in the UK. No domestic release date seems to be available but we presume it will land around the same time (at least we hope). — Kevin Jagernauth