Trust Mike Skinner to put it succinctly: “I’ve spent many nights wasted, but not wasted any nights in Fabric over the years,” he said on the announcement of his new mix to celebrate 25 years of the fabled London nightclub. Fabric Presents: the Streets centres on the club’s reputation as “one of the homes of bass music”, said Skinner, “and that’s some of the music I’ve been playing out the most.” His mix opens with a new Streets track, No Better Than Chance, and spans UKG and bassline crew TQD to grime artist Manga Saint Hilare and Fred Again.
The record comes amid a busy period for the 45-year-old rapper, who has a looming set at Glastonbury and last year released and starred in his debut film, The Darker the Shadow, the Brighter the Light, and an accompanying album – entirely written, directed and even financed by himself. “I thought: ‘How hard can it be?’” he told Miranda Sawyer last year. “You know, I’ve done millions of music videos. I do music videos every week. So I was like: ‘It’s what, 90 minutes? That’s 30 music videos … But it’s not like 30 music videos. Because with music videos, you’re not beholden to a story that has to make sense. You just film a load of stuff and pick out what looks the nicest and the music does the rest. You can’t do that with a film.”
You can ask him about that, the 20th anniversary of A Grand Don’t Come for Free, designing his own Reebok Classics, his frankness over losing “tens of thousands” on compulsive gambling in the early 2000s, being introduced to a new audience by Fred Again and anything else when he sits for the Guardian’s reader interview next week.
Post your questions in the comments by 19 June and read the best responses in Film & Music next Friday.
