His name is Joseph Junior Adenuga, but people know him as Skepta. And anyone who even slightly pays attention to the hip-hop scene knows Skepta. He has indubitably changed the UK rap scene and will go down as one of the most influential rappers from London Town. Born in Tottenham, Skepta was born to Nigerian parents, but grew up in London. He’s collaborated with plenty of big name artists some being Pharrell Williams, Playboi Carti, and the ASAP MOB gang.
He has collaborated on a number of projects outside of music, as he has shoe deals with Nike and as worked with brands such as Supreme, Palace, etc..
Skepta shares Nigerian roots with his parents being immigrants; however, he is native to the United Kingdom and much of his musical influences come from the British rap/grime scene. His track, “Papi Chulo” recently went viral as a TikTok sounds and a dance to go with it. The song has 100 million streams on multiple platforms.
However, most notably, he is quite famous for his verse in “Praise The Lord (Da Shine) off of A$AP Rocky’s melodic album Testing. Skepta interpolates and pays homage to DMX’s flow in “Who We Be.” Praise The Lord has close to 700 million streams on multiple platforms.
Skepta works closely with his fellow grime rappers and has multiple tracks with these artists. Some of these artists include Stormzy, Giggs, and SLOWTHAI.
The track to be spotlighted in this article today is titled “Bullet From A Gun” off of his 2019 album Ignorance Is Bliss. The message that Skepta spits in this track is really an introspective sad song. He tells of his life in the UK as he paints a picture of his adolescence and his road to fame and glory. He says, “Like a bullet from a gun it burns, when you realize she was never your girl it was just your turn.” though this song isn’t directly a heartbreak track, he includes in this song all the things that have hurt him and I guess for most, love is involved.