Skepta-Doin’ It Again
3 Beat/All Around The World

For those who love UK Grime, album releases with the possibilities of commercial success can a bit of a love/hate situation. One one hand, grime, which originated in East London and at one point created paranoia amongst British officials due to the violent lyrical content in the songs, was a new voice for British youth coming out of the poorer neighborhoods in inner city London and trickled it’s way up north to cities such as Birmingham and Manchester. On the other hand, the genre of music which packed local London raves and occasionally made day time radio, spawned artists such as Dizzee Rascal, who reached a huge level of success early on and not to mention fellow grime emcees Tinchy Stryder, Tinie Tempah and Chipmunk who have joined the ranks of commercial success within the last year with albums not necessarily “grime”.
So now let’s talk about Skepta’s third album release titled “Doin’ It Again”. The North London emcee/producer who created grime songs such as “Private Caller” and “D.T.I” now finds himself rubbing elbows with the likes of people such as the infamous Diddy and his latest album is definitely stretching itself between commercial success while still trying to follow a grime blueprint. In all fairness, Skepta has managed to at least aim for the stars without completely abandoning the grime sound. The production is a bit more polished and mature with piano riffs over Skepta’s signature husky basslines i.e. the song “Nobody Made Me”. Singles such as the rock/pop/grime influenced “Rescue Me” and the N-Dubz featured “So Alive” are on the album. “Thrown In The Bin” is a straight ahead grime track with fellow Boy Better Know cohorts while “Amnesia” paints the picture of a wild Ibiza night over a more Hip-Hop/club rhythm. Generally a really good album, the track titled “All Over The House” which was on Skepta’s mixtape “Been There Done That” could have been left off of the record or simply replaced with unheard material. “Doin’ It Again” may possibly be the album that pushes Skepta into the market that he’s been gunning for, and for what it’s worth, he deserves it.