Last week Skepta made waves with the release of Gas Me Up (Diligent), the newest teaser from his upcoming solo comeback album Knife and Fork. Not content with just dropping the track alone, Skepta released an a capella version along with it. A vocal track this clean, direct from the source, was guaranteed to set the beatmaking community ablaze.
We can trace this unusual move back a few months to the emergence of the Skeptacore trend on TikTok. Spearheaded by 19 year-old Hull-based producer Ryder, we saw the platform flooded with emotive reimaginings of classic Skepta verses - with Ryder striking viral gold by layering the MC’s original vocal tracks with lush, reverb-soaked soundscapes that hew slightly closer to Midwest emo and ambient than the crisp immediacy of those original Grime instrumentals. To master this melancholic sound, check out Bristol producer Hodge’s course on adding warmth and texture to your music with tape machines.
Skepta quickly caught on to the trend and took Ryder under his wing for an official EP release, featuring original collaborations with the MC as well as packaging up the viral edits. Fast-forward to today and the Gas Me Up a capella has been let out into the wild, sparking creative flips in a similar vein to the Skeptacore trend across the music production community. The track has been reworked by Wize as well as PlayVirtuoso artist Plastician - if you want to get a deep insight into Plastician’s entire process for making drill instrumentals, check out his course.
This moment signifies not only the ability of artists to boost their careers with creative flips of more established artists’ material, but also how those bigger artists can democratise their recorded assets to bring the music production community together and generate new levels of hype. It’s a win-win situation for everyone, so let’s hope more artists follow suit in the future.