Original Pirate Material
A Groundbreaking Garage Record from The Streets
Original Pirate Material, by The Streets, serves up innovative garage, hip-hop and funk, but Mike Skinner's brilliantly witty and acerbic lyrics are the real attraction.
Original Pirate Material was the first album by The Streets, hailed by New Musical Express as “the future of dance music” and “Razor sharp wit. Shakespeare for clubbers” by the Mail on Sunday. The Streets was a project originally set up by Mike Skinner, and intended to be a collective of Birmingham rappers and producers, but ended up being a one-man band.
Being written, produced, arranged and mixed by Mike Skinner doesn’t seem to have hurt this album one bit. His stripped down beats clunk energetically against string racks and piano loops, and Skinner keeps the texture purposefully raw, contrasting with the more produced sound of London garage. He also draws on more styles than the big garage stars, dragging in elements of funk, hip-hop and soul. Obviously the Brummies like a spicier blend.
It’s Skinner’s lyrics which really set Original Pirate Material apart from other garage artists, however. Eschewing the glib clichés of bling, low-rides and good lovin’, the rhymes paint a picture of lairy nights out in sweaty clubs, dodgy kebabs on the way home, greasy spoon breakfasts and shifty dancefloor infidelities. Just as Root Manuva’s Witness was the first known mention of cheese on toast by an MC, Don’t Mug Yourself has probably broken ground with its reference to “two plates of full English over/ with plenty of scrambled eggs and plenty of fried tomato”.
Original Pirate Material isn’t just an ode to iffy nights on the town, though. Skinner is capable of some brilliantly deflating lines, such as his clubber who enthuses “Known you all my life, but I don’t know your name...European Bob? Cool” and Geezers Need Excitement, a lengthy and witty look at nightclub punchups. Weak Become Heroes undercuts the ecstatic lyrics about the life-changing experience of being pilled up at Ibiza with a relentless piano loop which grates on the listener long before the lyrics to suggest that everything isn’t rosy. And the macho morning-after banter of Don’t Mug Yourself brilliantly depicts an argument over “who wears the trousers” with an apparently effortless stream of rhymes.
There are some weaknesses in the album, of course. Though he avoids the gangsta posturing of most rapper, Skinner is a bit too fond of name-checking The Streets, and some of the less verbal tracks lack inventiveness. Far more serious is his tendency, when not being ironic or analytical, to lapse into lazy clichés only supported by his sincerity. As Mike Skinner would later discover in Dry Your Eyes, sincere simplicity can easily flop over into complete banality.
It’s too soon to say whether Original Pirate Material will be a landmark, or change the direction of garage, and British MC-ing in general. It is, however a fantastic album, and will surely become a classic.
