Skepta Goes “All In” With 5 New Tracks and Announces Retirement From Rapping

Legendary Tottenham rapper and MC Skepta has made his highly anticipated return to the music scene with the short and sweet 5-track EP: “All In.” This will be the rapper’s first major project since 2019’s thermal-inspired album “Ignorance is Bliss,” and most likely his last.

The London-born superstar announced the new EP on his social media on June 25 as well as the full tracklist, saying that despite how hectic of a year it was, he was still able to make some tunes in 2020 alongside producer/engineer Joshua Faulkner.

“We threw it all together and stripped it down to five standalone singles for the world to enjoy. The EP is called ‘ALL IN.’ As soon as Joshua Faulkner has finished mixing and mastering, it’s yours.”

Speaking to Tiffany Calver, Skepta confirmed that his cryptic post back in March implying that he’d be retiring from music was indeed true; he’ll be pivoting away from creating his own music and instead redirecting his focus to other creative avenues from later this year. He believes he’s finally rapped himself out of ideas and is now desiring to work as a producer for other artists, but not before going quite literally “all in” with the rest of his unreleased music catalogue for the fans (minus a Bandokay and Double Lz collab that we’re yet to hear).

There’s a solid roster of features accompanying Big Smoke on his final collection of songs: reggaeton megastar J Balvin headlines the project with the smooth and melodic standout single “Nirvana,” Kid Cudi, with whom Skepta worked with on the drill-hop fusion track “Show Out” for the former’s 2020 album “Man on the Moon III: The Chosen,” and upcoming Nigerian genre-defying musician Teezee came through on “Peace of Mind.” The album was produced by Skepta with the help of Joshua Faulkner and British-Ghanaian producer Jae5, the enigma behind a lot of the UK’s most popular and recognizable afroswing tracks.

One of the UK’s most iconic and genre-defining musicians of all time will be missed in our music libraries, but we sure won’t stop seeing Skepta in the acknowledgements section of other albums, the red carpet, or dominating the fashion scene.