The New Britpop

For a rapper, Mike Skinner is awfully reticent. Coaxing an answer out of the English artist is like pulling teeth -- which is ironic, given that his recent album is so lyrically thick that many critics seem to have overlooked the music entirely. Original Pirate Material, Skinner's debut recording as the Streets, is one of the wordier records to come along in ages, with the artist's thick accent plastered over every one of its 14 tracks. But speaking by phone from New York, where he's in town for his first-ever American press junket, he's about as talkative as a sullen teenager awaiting punishment in the principal's office.

Ewan Spencer

Mike Skinner of the Streets.

Details

Tuesday, Oct. 22, at 8:30 p.m.

Tickets are $10

440-0523

Justice League, 628 Divisadero (at Hayes), S.F.

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• Mike Skinner
• Eminem
• Chelsea Grand
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Maybe his silence is a cultural thing. The 23-year-old's entire image is based upon being archetypally English, and from his room in the Chelsea Grand he sounds a bit like a fish out of water. Setting aside his ironing -- yes, he not only likes his shirts ironed, but also does it himself -- Skinner offers this assessment of New York: "It's all right; a bit different to what I'm used to, really." And then silence. Asked how his previous night's pub crawl was, he musters the reply, "To be honest, I only stayed 'round for one drink. I went back to the hotel." One drink? This sober behavior from the artist who wrote the hilarious song "Too Much Brandy," featuring the rousing refrain, "Get fucked up with the boys"?

"I don't really know anyone out here, to be honest," demurs Skinner. "I tend to do it" -- get fucked up, presumably -- "on my own turf, on my own corner." And then silence again.

Since the dawn of rock 'n' roll, performers have used the press to fine-tune their images. Maybe Skinner has plenty to say and only is holding back to reinforce his rep as an average guy. After a while, though, it becomes apparent that his reserve is genuine, more a matter of a vague unease at finding himself off his own corner, combined, perhaps, with a particularly English incuriousness about anything not English. For anyone who loves Original Pirate Material, this realization is followed by a curious sinking feeling: The chance of the Streets succeeding stateside looks mighty slim -- which is a shame, because Skinner's debut is one of the most exciting releases to reach these shores in a long time. Alternating between quick wit and deadpan melancholia, the record sidesteps dance culture's insider cul-de-sac with richly textured beats and an Anglocentric outlook that's unlike anything in hip hop orelectronica.

The Streets first appeared in 2001 with the single "Has It Come to This?," an instant anthem in England that combined Skinner's monotone voice-over with the "garage" style (a British-born hybrid of house, R&B, and speedy reggae, pronounced "GAIR-idge" and not to be confused with garage rock). In a nasal, Birmingham drawl, Skinner sketched a novel picture of inner-city England, one far removed from American thug life. "This is the day in the life of a geezer [everyman]," rapped Skinner. "Videos, televisions, 64s, PlayStations ... a few herbs and a bit o' Benson." The tune was a salute to the underemployed youth of urban England, and a lower-middle-class take on rap and garage. Where the latter culture had been growing increasingly obsessed with the most gaudy trappings of hip hop -- diamond jewelry, Cristal Champagne, fast cars, and gang violence -- Skinner's quotidian focus reclaimed the art form for regular Joes too poor for a proper night out. His heroes and his audience alike were the everyday blokes you'd find scarfing down greasy chips or rolling spliffs in a government-subsidized flat.

When the full-length Original Pirate Material appeared early this year, it worked with the same topics -- Skinner and his mates going out for pints and kebabs, smoking weed, mastering Gran Turismo, and discussing the starlet Gail Porter. British music magazine NME declared Skinner "the English Eminem," but that was hardly accurate, considering how Skinner raps about women with a lovesick earnestness, remarking, "'Round here we say 'birds,' not 'bitches.'"

When asked about the Eminem reference, he blows it off with characteristic understatement. "I don't think I am [like him], really. I just think it's that I'm quite lairy [rowdy] and I speak my mind. Eminem's the other person who does that people would know about."

In fact, the comparison makes no sense. The track "Geezers Need Excitement" might sound tough ("Geezers need excitement/ If their lives don't provide them this they incite violence/ Simple common sense"), but the narrator walks away from a fight rather than inviting the "Jackie Chan scene it could've been." Instead of hotheaded hooliganism, Skinner offers cool pacifism.

Still, the rapper does echo Eminem in the way he brings class politics to the music. (Given that garage is considered "black music" in England, one might find another parallel as well, but Skinner downplays any racial politics, claiming garage's mixture of whites, blacks, and Asians is more integrated than the hip hop world.) But despite the grainy image of council flats on the cover of Original Pirate Material, Skinner isn't from the projects; he describes himself as "like lower middle class," having grown up in humble tract homes.