London grime giant Skepta has taken his career to some unexpected places lately. He released an extremely cool collaborative EP with the superstar DJ Fred again.. last year, and then he took steps to become a superstar DJ himself. Earlier this year Skepta started up spinning house records at Más Tiempo, his DJ residency at Hï Ibiza's Club Room, and he released an EDM EP to go along with it. Now, Skepta's back to rapping on a new single, but it's got its own strange clubby energy.
At some unidentified date in the future, Skepta will reportedly release a new album called The Fork And Knife. His new single "Innocent Smile" is a fast, restless, breakbeat-driven jam that will almost certainly soundtrack at least three movie montages in the next decade. Skepta co-produced the track with drum 'n' bass hitmakers Chase & Status, and the endlessly lovable longtime Madness frontman Graham "Suggs" McPherson sings the Gorillaz-esque chorus.
Skepta opens "Innocent Smile" up with this unfortunate bar: "What's the story, morning glory?/ More fake news tryna mind-control me." It's a big, obvious commercial play that may or may not go off at festivals. For the first minute or so, I was like, "Oh no, this is terrible." Then, I was like, "Wait a minute, this goes hard." It's quite a ride! The song has a cool new video from Aidan Zamiri, the frequent Charli XCX collaborator who directed her movie The Moment. Check it out below.
