As two hacks, who should know better, concluded over a pint in a Soho pub recently, The Streets, aka Mike Skinner, could be described as The Specials doing Squeeze. Albeit with a few added sub bass drops.
Whatever its limitations, no song makes this comparison more apt than 'Let's Push Things Forward', which is stuffed with Rico brass references and spoken cockney delivery, in this case apparently targeting the music industry.
On the verses Mike Streets adopts a traditionally paranoid hip hop MC stance, defending himself against imagined critics with a catalogue of over blown brags: "I make points that are significant, this ain't a track its' a movement, I make bangers not anthems, leave that to the Artful Dodger", he spits at his would-be label mates.
The second track, 'All Got Our Runnings', was strangely ditched from the finished version of the album. It is, or rather was, one of the most archetypical Streets tracks in his debut set and is chock full of humorous references to everyday occurrences, delivered through playful rhyming scans - or should that be scams.
"I'm The Streets, I'm Just A geezer," he quips on the chorus, "I gotta make ends meet yeah, gotta do what I need ta. S**t, we all got our runnings now."
And it's clear the Brummie boy with the cockney delivery is, at this moment, running things his way.
