Skepta Begins Album Rollout With New Single and Piccadilly Lights Takeover

Skepta has released a new single featuring Chase & Status and Suggs, as he prepares to release his first album in over seven years.

On Friday (September 18), the UK grime legend dropped off "Innocent Smile," an up-tempo record that pairs rap and electronic club music, and is accompanied by a dark music video directed by Aidan Zamiri.

According to a press release, Skepta and Zamiri's intention for the video was to "build a distinct visual world around the track, bringing together cinematic storytelling and British cultural references from the 2000s." One of those early references includes a BT payphone that Skepta can be seen rapping from at times throughout the visual.

"Innocent Smile" will land on Skepta's long-awaited sixth album, The Fork and Knife, which will be the rapper's first since 2019's Ignorance Is Bliss. The much-anticipated project will be shaped by "Skepta's deep connection to British music culture, from grime and garage to house, jungle and rave."

Sharing a clip of the video on his Instagram, Skepta explained how the track came together and how important both the music and visual are to him.

"The #ForkAndKnife album roll out begins," he wrote. "No better way to kick off than with Suggs (Madness) a British icon who I’ve rated all my Life. We started this song years ago as a Ska record but over the years I’ve been messing with the production, finally I added a break beat to it from Splice and the song came alive."

Explaining how Chase & Status came into the picture, he added: "Now I had a banger but I wanted an authentic break so I tagged in my trusted brothers @chaseandstatus and Innocent Smile was made."

Going on to break down the importance of the song's lyrical content, Skepta wrote: "The message in this song is really close to my chest, I travel around the world and I constantly see ethnic groups segregated and closed off to people/ideas from other cultures. In the UK, you would have had 10 or more different nationalities in your classroom to begin with so we are raised to respect other peoples beliefs, faith and language from young.

"This is how the UK always creates the best scenes and sub genres. Our rave culture is literally a melting pot of people who have a mutual respect for what we all bring to the table."

"Being a child of immigrants 'from Nigeria to Meridian' I’m grateful to the UK that we were given a chance to make something of our lives but it also hurts so much to see how Britain as a country is becoming divided and essentially losing our usp smh 😔," he continued. "This song is for the people. A reminder that we are all we got and to never let negativity outshine the beauty of Multiculturalism 🇬🇧 wha gwaan William?"

In addition to new music, the "Shutdown" hitmaker has also taken over one of London's biggest landmarks, putting his own words on the big screen in Piccadilly Circus.

The rapper's new public artwork, DILIGENT, is a CIRCA commission built from 24 statements pulled from his own lyrics, playing out on over the Piccadilly Lights and free for anyone visiting the area to watch.

The statements function as a self-portrait made of language. They range from the blunt to the declarative, moving through identity, independence, fatherhood and the question of who gets to define a person.

One reads: "I'M A PRODUCT OF MY ENVIRONMENT, BUT I REFUSE TO BE DEFINED BY IT."

Together the 24 lines take on identity, environment, perception and ambition, framed as the forces that shape who we become. It is a reframing of material that started life inside songs and interviews, lifted out and handed a screen of its own.

Skepta described the commission as an act of return, giving his language back to the place that produced it.

"London is the city where I grew my voice. With this project, I wanted to take a look back at my journey and put some of my words back into the city that shaped them," he shared in a press statement. "Words have always been a powerful part of what I do, and over the years some of them have taken on a life beyond the music. I wanted to give them their own space and see them in a different context."

He has also been out in the crowd for it, filmed looking up at his own sentences towering over Piccadilly Circus.

Each of the 24 statements exists off the screen, too, as a limited edition of 150 two-colour screen prints on Somerset 300gsm paper, hand-signed and sold exclusively through circa.art at £150 apiece.

Every purchase enters an automatic draw for £24,000, a figure that echoes the number of statements in the work.