1. SkinnymanCouncil Estate Of Mind
I was always listening to the underground radio scene, so by the time people were on Channel U, I was normally already familiar with them. This was a channel we could put our videos on, because other channels weren’t supporting at the time. But Skinnyman was one of the earliest artists that I found on Channel U – I just remember that video for ‘Council Estate of Mind’ when he’s going through an estate and he really pictured inner city life. I thought that was sick. I grew to love that tune and then it made me look for the album, which was titled Council Estate of Mind as well. That’s one of the first bodies of work that I heard from a UK artist that I really felt represented the UK in terms of accent, pictures painted, tones, slang he used – like, how he was actually living. I’ve met him a few times as well, great guy. And by the time that I met him he’d listened to my music as well, so we had a mutual conversation.