Skepta Quotes

I haven’t just come up with a hit – I’m not like a one-hit-wonder – I’ve been here for ages. No one is questioning my ability, so just enjoy the wave, spread the wave.

For a long time, men weren’t respecting women. They weren’t understanding Mother Earth, Mother Nature, the Motherland, all the motherly stuff. And now we are.

You have to understand, that’s all I’ve ever wanted: for London to have a credible musical voice. I will honestly, honestly die happy knowing that I saw it happen.

The star, the person who’s on the mic, always gets seen.

I can’t make hard street music for the rest of my life. Your references change.

When I finally got there, to where I thought was the top, I wasn’t doing what I was doing in the beginning. I was not happy.

Even with the ‘Top Boy’ series with Ashley Walters… I’ve been talking like on the creative direction wave with Drake about the series. Making greatness with it. The whole style of what’s going on in London, the sound, is real. It’s an actual thing that actually happened. So it deserves to be on the telly.

You won’t feel inferior in my sportswear!

I don’t know what I’m going to end up doing, but its definitely in the right direction for freedom and truth.

Even though I played this role in ‘Anti-Social,’ you can see by the poster it’s not concentrating on some black rudeboy thing. This is a smash-and-grab movie!

A good diss track needs to have some facts in it and definitely tell some truth.

I’m winning even if I have zero pence in my bank account, because my mind’s free.

‘That’s Not Me’ video cost me 80 English pounds.

Pirate radio is like street art.

I feel like I’m the chosen one, but I chose myself.

I have been wearing Air Max for so long, since I was seven playing around in the estate; I feel like I know my Air Max well.

We’ve been ahead for so long in the U.K., we’re so multicultural, and that’s the beauty. That’s why grime was formed, from this mix, this understanding of different people.

I definitely think that my vibe has rubbed off on Drake a bit.

At every stage of my life, I’ve always wanted to do good for Earth.

Pharrell loves music. When I’m with him, it’s like I’m working with someone that I’ve known all my life, and we’re both there to make the sickest track we can.

It took a long time for hip-hop to become commercial. Now there’s all these big black icons that came from nowhere to somewhere. Look at Jay-Z! People stopped being threatened by the music and just started to appreciate that it’s good.

I am blessed to have been able to travel the world doing what I do.

Getting in touch with your life purpose is important.

I put three productions of my youngest brother Jason on my album, on ‘Konnichiwa,’ and that made me happy, to be able to do that for him.

To be able to come back to Nigeria and get so much love for my work is my biggest life blessing. I’ve always hoped to never get lost in translation with me being British-born.

It’s almost a blessing for a new generation to say somebody like myself went to their school. It helps kids dream, and now they’re getting into acting, football, whatever.

Songwriting has really allowed me to enjoy life and look at it from an objective place.

Every year, I always go abroad with dark music, and I’m going to these places, and I feel like I want a party rep – I want something that everyone is going to go crazy to and enjoy and have a good feeling.

Now, I think you’ll find a lot of rappers and artists are getting girl managers. It just makes sense. The guys in my team have learnt a lot from bringing girls in.

There are different things to wear in different places, and if you want to fit in and show respect, you can dress to do that, or you can dress to show that you are foreign and not from there. That can work, too.

I’m from the street, but I’m not a street head. I’m not one of those guys who believe that life is about the street. I’m nerdy at heart, man.

Some artists are like ready-salted crisps and just do what they are supposed to do. But I’m every flavour in one. I’m one of those variety packs.

There’s a lot of oppressed people in Tottenham, but people in Tottenham also know how to turn pain into triumph.

When I was trying to make songs to go to America, to go to Japan, they’d never work.

Radio 1 doesn’t exist to me. I don’t judge my success by anything they say.

Boy Better Know, when we die, people are going to realise that we are just seven guys who just, like, try to have fun.

When I was a youth, to be called ‘African’ was a diss. At school, the African kids used to lie and say they were Jamaican. So when I first came in the game, and I’m saying lyrics like, ‘I make Nigerians proud of their tribal scars/ My bars make you push up your chest like bras,’ that was a big deal for me.

Everything makes sense to me in Lagos; I even understand myself.

I go to award ceremonies, but I always like to be in my world. That’s the only place I can control where I won’t get upset.

‘No fear’ is a mindset that I stand for. It’s the reason why I’ve got to where I am today.

I think some things that are better for me are not good for other people, innit. They need to run theirself. Everybody should run theirself.

In this music industry, you’ll find the differences with artists. You get some people who really love music… and you get people who do this because they want to have money or want to be famous.

The worst thing that happened to me at a gig was when the microphone wasn’t on one time, and for the three lines of the verse with Chipmunk, you couldn’t hear me.

I feel like the Earth is a re-print of a re-print of a print of a re-print.

All the other rappers around me aren’t saying anything worthwhile. They’re lost in rap: all they do is tell you they’re a sick MC and they’re better than you. I don’t want to look like all these other little punk, dress-up, fake, manufactured artists. I’m not a rapper. I’m an activist.

When I was younger, I was very wild, and I didn’t really have my head screwed on properly.

‘Konnichiwa’ was made because I don’t like the industry. I really had to remove myself from it to understand myself.

I think about this every day. I wonder, ‘Is today the day where everybody stops lying to themselves and realises that the government is the enemy?’

I hear all the big department stores like Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s in the U.S. playing hard hip-hop records to the shoppers, like Rick Ross at his gnarliest. That’s amazing. It makes me think grime can do a similar thing.

I’m happy that grime remains underground. A lot of people talk like it’s some underrated or ignored genre, but to me, that’s the beauty of it.

I want to show the young generation that success is not something you search for externally: it is from within.

All my early lyrics were about confidence.

Being in an industry where money talks, everybody involved in the ‘Dare To Dream’ project came to a conclusion to sign it to Interscope.

I think ‘Inception’ was a sick idea, but they didn’t do it correctly.

I’m not gonna ever announce that I’m going to do an album again. Waking up with that on your head almost doesn’t allow you to make the best album you can.