Opening up about ditching his wild past, The Streets rapper Mike Skinner has revealed he has swapped the excesses of fame for a quieter life as a father.
Mike Skinner has swapped the excesses of fame for a quieter life as a father.
The 47-year-old rapper, best known for his work with The Streets, rose to prominence in the early 2000s with his album A Grand Don’t Come for Free, a portrait of modern British life during the era of Tony Blair, and has now described his shift away from what he once called a “complete collapse in morality”.
Mike later chronicled the pressures of fame in The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living, referencing drug binges and the excesses of the music industry, and is married to Claire Le Marquand, with whom he has two children: Amelia, 17, and George, 14.
Speaking to The Sunday Times Style Magazine, Mike described his current lifestyle in contrast to his earlier years, saying about his album The Hardest Way to Make an East Living, which described drug binges on tour and misadventures with an unnamed pop star who smoked crack: “Those songs are about being so unbelievably lost, because there was a complete collapse in morality.
“All the good tent poles you grow up with – what your parents tell you, how society works, the value of work –just collapse (when you get fame.) All the clichés are true.”
When asked how he didn’t totally collapse, Mike added: “Discipline, in the end. You have to push back the ego and say, ‘I’m here to make music, and it’s not possible to do that when you’re like this.’”
He went on: “And then I started doing the Streets again because I’d spent 10 years not making the film, but I then realised it might work if I made the music for it.
“Plus, you know that Sylvester Stallone quote, that he made a film so his kids didn’t think all he did was play golf? There was an element of that too.”
Mike outlined a typical family weekend today, saying it involved a trip to Selfridges, adding: “And then the girls went shopping and the boys hung out.”
He is set to return to the stage this summer with a tour celebrating his best-known album and is also working on new music alongside a film project centred on alien abduction.
The Streets’ catalogue – including early releases such as Original Pirate Material – earned widespread acclaim, two number one albums and six top 20 singles.
In a separate interview with The Independent, Mike spoke about difficulties during his rise to fame, including personal loss and financial struggles linked to betting.
He said: “I wouldn’t want to do that again. Which seems crazy – being in the charts, being in the newspapers… I like the Noel Gallagher attitude: it’s your job to show the next generation that it’s amazing being a creative. Stop complaining and take your mental collapse like a proper rock star.”
Mike also described the impact of spread betting, saying it was “incredibly traumatic”, and reflected on past anxiety.
He said: “I don’t have the feeling of being watched all the time any more, which is great.
“On my second or third album, you’d walk in somewhere and people would start talking about you. You didn’t know what people were going to do.”
Mike Skinner reveals how he’s swapped excesses of fame for quieter life as a father
