The Streets

The Streets is the project of Mike Skinner, a British artist from Birmingham who has been active since the early 2000s and has become a key figure in recent English music. After making his name with Original Pirate Material (2002), he made a decisive turn with A Grand Don’t Come for Free (2004), a multi‑platinum record propelled by the singles Dry Your Eyes, Fit But You Know It and Blinded By the Lights, now regarded as defining tracks of the early 21st century in the UK. The project established Skinner as a distinctive voice in the British scene, able to turn everyday observations and urban narratives into precise, locally rooted chronicles. The Streets went on with The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living (2006), Everything Is Borrowed (2008) and Computers and Blues (2011), followed by a hiatus and a return in 2017. In 2023 the project came back with The Darker the Shadow the Brighter the Light, confirming the trajectory of an artist who has continually explored the boundaries between British rap, UK garage and electronica while maintaining a direct, writing‑centred perspective on his era.