Monday 11 June 2007

Collabo Connections #2 - Skinnyman


Skinnyman featured on Mark B & Blade’s ‘The Unknown’ in ’01 on the track ‘The long awaited’, a banger for sure. Skinnyman, considered by many to be a UK Hip Hop veteran, spent his childhood in Chapeltown, Leeds, moving to Stoke Newington when he was 10. These two locations schooled him in the art of toasting lyrics at reggae sound system clashes and after Malcolm Mclarens ‘Buffalo Girls’ introduced him to Hip Hop it was inevitable that the two styles intertwined.

The year before Baby J dropped ‘F.T.P.’ he produced 3 tracks on Skinnyman’s long awaited debut album. The two big tracks were ‘I’ll be surprised’ and the Bobby Byrd sampling ‘No big Ting’. This led to Skinnyman having the first track on F.T.P. – ‘None of them (ft. Laurissa)’. Also producing on ‘Council estate of mind’ were DJ Flip (producing the title track), DJ Noize, Stone and Adam M. ‘Council estate of mind’ was released on the number 1 UK Hip Hop label – Low Life Records (owned by Braintax whos Biro Funk set featured Skinnyman on ‘Opening Titles’).

Taking it back Skinnyman was, and still is, a member of Mud Family who released, most famously, ‘Itchy Town’. Mud Family at the time comprised of Skinny himself, Chester P (Now of Taskforce) and (Blak Twang hater) Mongo. The changing line up of Mud Fam meant that Skinny also worked with SupaNovar, Mr. Ti2bbs, Farma G (Chester P’s Brother/other half of Taskforce) and others. Before Mud Family, in the mid 80’s, Skinny was a member of the Bury Crew also with Chester P and Mongo as well as Intenz, Mike Skilla, Keith and Sparks.

In 2000 Skinny appeared on ‘Twilight of the Gods’, a Skitz track which also featured Rodney P, Wildflower, Riddla and Prime Cuts. Skinnyman was on Westwood’s second compilation (2002) holding up the UK’s tiny section (2 tracks) at the end of the 2nd CD was ‘Straight Outta Jail’, a song probably written straight after Skinny got out of jail (“I ain’t sayin’ what I do//I ain’t gettin’ catched”). Skinnyman also featured on a track with Mystro and Jargon called ‘Put the word out’.

2003 brought a teaming up with Foreign Beggars on ‘Asylum Speakers’ and 2004 saw a couple of collaborations with Karl Hinds; ‘Have Patience’ and ‘Let’s av it’.

In ’05 Skinnyman (along with Blade) featured on First Rate’s album ‘Walky Talkyz’. His track Barfight is a song all about…well you know…over a wobbly piano led beat. In the same year he featured on a remix of Sway’s ‘Up your speed’ with Pyrelli, Triple Threat, Bruza and Bigz. Skinny also worked with Life (of Phi-Life Cypher) and Sway on ‘The whole nine’ in this year.

Skinny’s latest track is ‘Live Right’ featuring Monkane, an ex-label mate at Gilles Peterson’s Talkin’ Loud records before it folded.

There are plenty more leads to take here as well as the ones from the post on Blade, this is just gonna get bigger peeps!

(There are so many collabos, for a full list of appearances check out Wikipedia)


Skinnyman - Ill be surprised.mp3
Mark B & Blade - The long awaited ft. Lewis Parker &.mp3
Mud Family - Itchy Town.mp3
Skinnyman - Straight Outta Jail.mp3
Skinnyman & Baby J - none of them ft. Laurissa.mp3
Skinnyman - No big ting.mp3
First Rate - Barfight ft. Skinnyman.mp3
Skinnyman - Council Estate of Mind.mp3

2 comments:

Tom said...

good stuff there, i'm living and learning at certified banger. are you limiting to UK hip-hop or is the world yer oyster? wikipedia is a wonderful thing. simian disco post coming soon on the hermit.

ANS said...

Well...there a re def avenues into the world of Hip Hop outside the metropolis that is the UK and if you check carefully in the Blade one, you will see that it's already taken le tunnel to France to see Saian Supa Crew - Le Brap!