Skepta to release The Folk and Knife album 

It’s official. Skepta’s highly-anticipated new album The Fork and Knife will be released on 6th November. The Mercury-prize winning rapper has already given fans a taste of what’s to come on his sixth studio album with “Innocent Smile”, which was released 18th September. If this track, featuring Suggs from Madness and drum and bass duo Chase & Status, is anything to go by, The Fork and Knife could be a contender for album of the year.

The record, released by Big Smoke/Epic Records, slides between grime, garage, house, jungle and electronic music. Exploring Identity through music, Skepta examines what it means to be British as the son of Nigerian immigrants, and how that has shaped his resilience and creative power.

Commenting on Instagram Skepta says: “I have poured my fucking heart out on this album, it’s been a task making something conscious but still turnt up.” On the time it’s taken to produce the work, he added, “The album taking so long means it has many different emotions on it, starting out as a simple London story, then travelling deeper into the story about being an immigrant child, then during the finishing stages I’ve been reading about the patriarchal system that a lot of us unknowingly sign up to as kids and thought that I could lend my voice to help drag even if it’s just a few of my supporters out of the bottomless pit of patriarchy.”

According to his team, the visual world of The Fork and Knife “draws on 1980s Nigerian-British imagery, football culture and documentary realism, connecting the history of the Windrush generation with the energy and reality of modern London”. 

Fans can pre-order the album here.