Twenty-three years ago, Dizzee Rascal’s “Sittin’ Here” was, for many, a first glimpse of something they’d never encountered before. Musically alien—sinuous keys, tin rattle snares, and whirring sirens—it painted a hypnotic picture of urban ennui. Its “same old story” of kitchen-sink drama and formless possibility was the unassuming opener to an album that proved grime’s scrappy, DIY sound could translate to a more traditional format. It also demonstrated a sense of space that allowed for blooming storytelling.
A couple of decades on, Skepta, another of the grime scene’s early architects, borrows the same icy palette and sparse arrangement for a different account. “Secrets of Patriarchy” opens The Fork and Knife with a flit through the studios, appointments, fashion shows, and family life of a man with demands on his time—but ultimately in control of his own destiny. While “Sittin’ Here” was about the perils of waiting for something to happen, Skepta sketches out his own lot. It’s a story that The Fork and Knife is clear-eyed and bold in telling: moving beyond grime’s now-established templates to curate a mural that spans three decades and more of Black British music, and tells a modern story of an immigrant family flourishing in spite of all odds and expectations.
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This album arrives seven and a half years after its nearest predecessor, and 34 months since it was first announced in January 2024. That delay might be explained, as Skepta has suggested in interviews, by the pursuit of perfection—or the weight of having to say something worth hearing. (When your audience has inadvertently become mums you might bump into on the school run, the pressure is apparently heightened.) So it takes a little time for things to get going. A bit of throat-clearing in the opening quarter, eggshell steps as he retreads familiar greazy grime rhythms and bouncy A$AP-adjacent rap flows on “Cold Shower” and “Currency.” But as The Fork and Knife unfolds, these nods to past output begin to make sense as Skepta starts to join the dots of a varied and storied career.
