Skepta’s Konnichiwa - More Than A Greeting. A Thread.

Skepta was at a crossroads in his career in late 2012; fresh off of his project Blacklisted. With Grime on the rise in popularity it needed a someone to spearhead the ‘movement’. Skepta, being grime royalty, took that seat.

The wait for Skepta’s 4th project ‘Konnichiwa’ began early 2013, with Skepta announcing the album would be called Konnichiwa.

June 6th 2014 was greeted with the lead single ‘That’s Not Me’ in which Skepta teamed up with his brother and fellow grime legend JME. That’s Not Me took the UK by storm and even today is still considered one of the most iconic and impactful UK rap songs.

But still no word on when Konnichiwa would be released; until November of 2014 were Skepta stated that Konnichiwa would be releasing the in the following spring. This however didn’t amount to an album with it being delayed again.

As an apology to disappointed fans, Skepta released what would turn out to be one of the most iconic grime songs of all time, ‘Shutdown’ on April 26th 2015. Shutdown went on to make a groundbreaking impact for the Grime scene, and is to this day looked at as an all time great.

Here’s an iconic performance of Skepta performing Shutdown, legendary

Not even a full month later, Skepta and “his goons” came out with Kanye West at his 2015 BRITs award performance of his track ‘All Day’. This was an iconic moment for boosting the UK Grime scene internationally.

Not a squeak came from Skepta’s camp for almost an entire year; until he released the 3rd single ‘Ladies Hit Squad’ on the Valentine’s Day of 2016, accompanied with D Double E and A$AP Nast.

Exactly 2 months later (14th April 2016) Skepta released the 4th and final single ‘Man’. This day also brought us the official Konnichiwa track list; showcasing all 4 singles and an extra 8 tracks accompanied with the final release date.

Skepta posted a since deleted IG post with the caption “ #Konnichiwa the album, May 6th. Greatness”, confirming the release date of the long awaited fabled 4th studio album; Konnichiwa.

Skepta did a live Konnichiwa listening party in Tokyo on the day prior to global release. Skepta used the streaming platform ‘Boiler Room’ to broadcast this experience for each corner of the world to join.

The following day the album got its official worldwide release, fans across the globe had their chance to listen to the masterpiece that was Konnichiwa; selling 35k first week, going number 1 on the UK Official Top 40 and charting in multiple other countries.

As well as charting success; Konnichiwa went down amazing with critics and reviewers world wide. An example of this would be Louis Pattison of NME giving it a perfect 5/5 rating.

Skepta would then announce a UK tour 48 hours after the release of the project. Skepta went to sell out all UK shows and would also tour Australia and the US too.

Konnichiwa would also go on to win the Mercury Prize. The panel who selected the winner of the award believed the legendary David Bowie would want Skepta to win the prestigious award. A day for the history books and a legendary moment for the grime scene.

Coming up to 5 years on from the project, Konnichiwa is now gold certified in the UK and is still held in the high regard it was when first released, if not higher. Konnichiwa is a classic, and an all time great UK album.

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