In the wise words of common Skepta collaborator and UK rap legend: ‘Chip’. ‘You think of Tottenham and you think of Harry Kane, I think of Tottenham and I think of hella’ pain…and Skepta’. I may have altered the ending, but it's still true; Skepta is one of the most famous and influential people to come out of North London in the 21st century, just like the former Spurs striker.

Once of Meridian and BBK (Boy Better Know) fame, nowadays Skepta is a global music icon, not boxed in by ‘Grime’ or even ‘rap’ as a whole, the man now dabbles in house music, runs a record label and has formed his own successful fashion brand. Collabs with the likes of Nike and Havana Club Rum show the man is more than just an artist and entrepreneur, he’s a brand now too.

Primarily thanks to TikTok, a certain track featuring the chopped vocals from Skepta’s ‘Text me back’, placed over the top of a light guitar riff started to snowball in popularity, as did an entire sub genre of repurposed Skepta vocals laid over new backing tracks. ‘Skeptacore’ was born, taking its name from the initial track’s title of ‘Skeptacore pt3’. 

Spearheading this phenomenon and the person credited with creating the original viral snippets was Ryder, a 19 year old, Hull-based music producer whose’ successes in turning old grime tracks into palatable mainstream ear worms caught the attention of Skepta himself. Prior to this, Ryder had made edits of SZA, P Money and cityboymoe tracks, but it was the Skeptacore audio clips and pt.3 in particular, that blew him up online.

In November the pair reworked the popular track, along with 3 others and dropped an impromptu EP under Skepta’s Big Smoke Records. Upcoming artist Dre Six also featured, (Who for what it's worth, probably had nothing to do with any of the upcoming controversy and is actually defo worth checking out).

However as quickly as Tiktok had helped blow Ryder up it threatened to pull him straight back down, as soon after the release of the EP,  a video posted by user: ‘Flawed Mangoes’, claimed that the now famous guitar riff and melody used in the headline track was actually his. Not just that it had been replicated, but it was straight up ripped right from his song: ‘Killswitch Lullaby’,  without seeking permission or providing credit. Flawed Mangoes himself is actually another talented young music producer and artist with over 300,000 monthly listeners on spotify, which has no doubt been boosted by this viral TikTok video.

FM exclaimed: “This remix of my guitar riff was blowing up so Ryder and Skepta released a bad copy of it without ever contacting or crediting me… I would’ve been down to clear the sample if they’d reached out”. 

As of writing, neither Skepta nor Ryder have commented on the video, or its claims and whilst I don’t think Ryder acted maliciously, in intending to steal FM’s work and purely pass it as his own, it is very arguable the track he’s gained most his notoriety and success from is reliant on FM’s stolen work.

I don’t believe Skepta or his team knew of the initial tracks questionable sampling, nor did they really care at the end of the day, as to them, this was just a jump off point to work from, dropping a surprise record that could catch onto a popular current trend that arguably any artist would do. Besides they remixed the edit and almost cut out FM’s riff altogether in the final published ‘Pt.3’, so perhaps in the studio the subject of whose riff this actually was came up and was decidedly hushed. And that’s fine, however now that what’s come to light has surfaced, It’s only right Flawed Mangoes is shown some form of credit for his contribution, if not financially then especially in writing.

I actually like Ryder, I think he’s super talented and am genuinely excited to see what he does next. I also obviously like Skepta. But in the meantime, whenever you get the urge to whack some Skeptacore on, go give Flawed Mangoes a listen as well, he’s just dropped a debut album: ‘Killswitch Melodies’ and it's genuinely class.

The idea of Skeptacore itself can feel a little weird, people; especially those who had no idea of who Skepta was before, listening to edits of songs rather than the initial songs themselves feels a lil dystopian, ‘black-mirror-esque’ to me. Especially when those edits start to get further and further away from the gritty sounds the actual lyrics are linked to. But who’s to say what someone creates or what someone listens to anyway and if the big man himself gives the genre a cosign, I guess it can stay. 

The Music Industry is messy. Both Ryder and Flawed Mangoes are sick and Skepta is still a legend. Peace.