Ignorance is Bliss by Skepta
Ignorance Is Bliss is the fifth studio album by British grime artist Skepta. It was released on 31 May 2019 through Boy Better Know, and is the follow-up to his 2016 album Konnichiwa. Background In 2018, Skepta announced his next album would be titled SkLevel, but said in April 2019 that the title had been changed because "#SkLEVEL is a 2018 pattern. New year, new name." Promotion On 28 April 2019, Skepta announced the release via his social media, sharing the release date and cover art, which NME described as a "grid of nine thermal camera images". On 9 May 2019, Skepta released the single "Bullet from a Gun" for streaming and digital download. Later that day, Skepta released the second single "Greaze Mode" with Nafe Smallz.
“I see people talking now, saying, ‘Skepta’s back! Skepta’s back!' Back? Do you know what I have just done? I’ve made songs bigger than man’s whole existence, bruv.” Skepta, as he made clear to Beats 1 host—and his sister—Julie Adenuga, is not here to mess about. His fifth album introduces a laser-focused Skepta. A quietly furious Skepta. “Everyone wants to be my arch-nemesis,” he spits on “Redrum”. It’s Skepta versus the world, and the results are thrilling.<br /> Work began on the largely self-produced follow-up to the Mercury Prize-winning, legend-securing <i>Konnichiwa</i> on New Year’s Day 2019. “I stopped smoking this year,” he says. “All my friends smoke, and I just needed to lock myself in the studio. I was in my own psychedelic world for <i>time</i> making the album.” That dedication shows in the taut and unyielding tracks on <i>Ignorance Is Bliss</i>. It means the raucous abandon of his breakthrough hits is largely absent, but in its place is something satisfying and, crucially, entirely appropriate for an artist on Skepta’s career timeline. UK rap rarely ushers its MCs through to this stage. The early-2010s grime renaissance has matured and splintered into something few predicted, and so it feels only right that one of the genre's great champions boldly evolves along with it. There’s mayhem and mischief (and a Sophie Ellis-Bextor sample), but this album is a grown-man flex. On many of the songs here, Skepta identifies himself as a target. Throughout, he proves himself too clever, too determined and too locked in to be taken down.
