SKEPTA

Joseph Junior Adenuga, aka Skepta, has always managed to balance being part of a scene with following his own path.



Like so many others, the North London MC and producer is parlaying a youth spent cutting his teeth on pirate radio and in grime raves into a mainstream career with seemingly unstoppable momentum, but along every step of the way he has done things his own way - and he has no intention of changing this to please anyone.



It's fitting that Skepta's biggest break to date came not as the result of marketing meetings or record label focus groups, but due to a spontaneous, organic and un-orchestrated fan movement.



Street-level support has been the driving force behind Skepta's rise; unlike his fellow grime crossovers, he has not been snapped up by a major label, and has never had the benefit of a massive marketing budget.



His two albums to date - 2007's wittily titled ‘Greatest Hits’ and 2008's ‘Microphone Champion’ - were both released on his own crew's independent Boy Better Know label, as will this year's ‘Doin' It Again’ be, and he has put the hard yards in when it comes to live performance.



"We've always felt like we don't rely on the radio so much - we rely on our direct contact with our fans," Skepta says. "Signing stuff for them, giving them stuff, interacting with them - making them feel like they're part of the team. We're all doing it together."



This is so important to Skepta that he will even Ustream interviews such, live online, regularly breaking off to address watching fans, play them exclusive snippets of beats for forthcoming tracks and answer questions.



Hard work means little without talent, though, but Skepta has plenty of that. He's nothing if not versatile: he can do menacing, he can do witty; he can do thoughtful, he can do feel-good party tracks. He can make you laugh and get you hyped up, and he's never less than a thrill to listen to.



Unlike some of his contemporaries, though, Skepta is adamant that he will not abandon grime in favour of transient commercial trends, and to this end, his next single, ‘Cross My Heart’, signals a return to a grimier sound in a bid to prove that he doesn't need to water himself down to gain success.



"I'm never going to run away from it, it's my home," Skepta states. "No matter what I make or MC on, when you look at me, you have to see grime - I've contributed to the inner history of the scene. Beats that I've made, clashes I've had that are legendary; I've made proper marks in grime, and no matter what I do I'll always touch base with it."



"People are now realising that there's success to be had in music," he says. "Back in the day, the only path out was football. It's good to show the youth that there's another path."