D&B and jungle icon Skibadee has sadly passed away at the age of 47.
No cause of death has been confirmed, but his family said in a statement on Sunday: “Hello everyone, as Alphonso’s first-born, I unfortunately come with some with sad news to say that Skibadee has passed away. As a family we ask for some privacy, but may he rest in peace.”
The South London MC first cut his teeth on City Sound Radio in the early ‘90s, and by the end of 1995 was a resident for Kool FM, Fever, T & J, Malachite, Electrybe, NJC, Designer label Ball, and Innersense.
Across three decades, Skibadee kept vocal D&B thriving in the underground and repeatedly pushed the sound into the mainstream. Firing off scores of hits over the years, one of his biggest hits came in 2002 when he teamed up with Dillinja for “Twist Em Out”, a track made famous by Da Ali G Show.
Along with Stevie Hyper D, who passed away in 1998, Skibba pioneered the double-time flow, a style he perfected and amplified with the 2XFreestyle series in the late ‘90s. In many ways, Skibadee was seen as the natural successor to Hyper D and in 1997 was awarded the Stevie Hyper D Lifetime Achievement Award at the Drum & Bass Awards.
Since the 2000s, he’d also been a close collaborator of Shabba D, forming the SAS partnership together. The duo later connected with DJs Phantasy and Macky Gee and MCs Stormin, and Harry Shotta to form D&B supergroup SASASAS.
Ever since the news broke, fans, collaborators, and industry figures have been sharing their condolences and memories of Skibba’s music.
