Regarding his upcoming espionage movie, Skepta said, "Why not have a Black 007? James Bond is white."

 

With Joseph Adenuga Jr. on the case, who needs Daniel Craig? The rapper's revelation about his undercover agent Tribal Mark shakes (and stirs) us.

Singing to NME is Skepta, one of the masterminds behind grime's irresistible mainstream debut. Amidst a throng of people, he is wearing a black bucket hat and a suit. He is vaguely remembering the 2017 NME Awards, where he won the Best British Male title and spent the most of the evening strolling around O2 Academy Brixton with a bottle of Jameson.

The man born Joseph Adenuga Jr. purrs, "Yeah, that was a good night." But that was one of my favorite honors. There was a sense of authenticity to it. Man, I adore NME.

Having won the Godlike Genius award that year, Pet Shop Boys ended the evening with an eight-song concert of pure pop perfection, with Skepta's grime crew Boy Better Know naturally leading the way. He laughs, "Everyone assumed it was going to be a grime rave, but man's going. He fades away, gets up, and starts singing "WEST END GIRLLLSSSSSS!", one of the campest songs in the UK.

He sits down when the laughter stops; the only thing lacking from the performance was a tiny bow. For those anticipating the 41-year-old rapper to be the legendary frightening interviewee, it's a bizarre sight, but in the early hours of 2024, Skepta has plenty to be cheerful about. This year marks the release of both his first feature film, Tribal Mark, which we briefly discussed, and his long-awaited sixth album, "Knife and Fork."

We are in his multifaceted company Big Smoke Corporation's creative hub, which is a tiny room at the top of a Soho staircase. The majority of the previously listed group is made up of associates he collaborated with on Tribal Mark, the debut feature from his production firm, 1PLUS1. Along with seasoned music video director Hector Dockrill, Skepta co-directed the 24-minute clip with his cousin Dwight Okechukwu, who is present now and has a similarly kind demeanor.

Before outsourcing the script, Okechukwu and Skepta devised the plot of Tribal Mark, which centers on Mark (Jude Carmichael), a small child whose well-meaning family uproots him from their Nigerian home in pursuit of the fabled "better life" in London. That isn't entirely how it works out: "Is the grass always greener?" Today, Skepta inquires. Teenage Mark associates with the wrong group of people, which brings him into a dire circumstance that we won't reveal here. You would only be partially correct, though, if it seems like harsh social realism.

“Tribal Mark is our visual representation of what a Black gentleman is”

The film is meant to be the forerunner to something even bigger. It was shot on location in Nigeria and London in a hyper-realistic art house style, complete with shaky tracking shots and purposefully jagged jump-cuts. The story follows Mark's metamorphosis into Skepta's Tribal Mark, a superspy figure identifiable by the two vertical lines that characterize his features from the beginning, one on the left and one on the right of his face. Plans are in motion for a more conventional action-adventure-themed follow-up feature picture before the character ventures into the infinitely fertile Tribal Mark film franchise.

"It's similar to the Black James Bond concept that all parties were attempting to achieve," said Skepta, seemingly explaining the outfit—although it may be difficult to remember 007 wearing a bucket hat. "We wanted to do something where, once the film is finished, I'm like, 'Well, cool, this is the franchise now.'" Then, he thinks, an actor like Damson Idris could take on those signature scarifications and have his "Daniel Craig moment" for a few movies. Just completing it so we don't always rely on James Bond and have a hitman spy.

When asked why he would like to establish Tribal Mark as opposed to having a Black 007, Skepta shoots back, "Because James Bond is white."

He warms up to the idea after some prodding: "You know, James Bond is practically the pinnacle of British gentlemen. He must have made a lot of white people think, "Okay, I need my Aston Martin and my watch and I'm going to be this guy." However, we don't own one. From now on, we will ask ourselves with great consideration: "What kind of vehicle does Mark drive? Which suit is he wearing? Since this will serve as our visual depiction of what it means to be a Black gentleman.

Skepta hopes that by showing young Black boys his real life and his character's life, they will realize that "the street life doesn't have to end in prison or the grave" and that some challenges can be overcome. He says, "Some people in the hood think they can swindle you – they're the same characters in business." We've experienced it together, so I can tell them apart at a distance, but I'm currently experiencing it in a business setting. That's what we want Mark to be. Otherwise, all we can think of is how to be like James Bond in order to be considered gentlemen.

Tribal Mark begins and ends with disclaimers that highlight the movie's fictional nature. Skepta clarifies that this is because he didn't want anybody to get the wrong impressions when casting the film, stating, "I know that a Skepta biography is something that people wanna see, innit, so I don't want people to assume this is my life. I'm prepared; I don't want this to overshadow my dream of doing the biopic someday.

Telling your own story through your own production business would undoubtedly be something to consider. "That would be fly," he says, grinning. I would have the narrative in my hands.

Nevertheless, there are similarities between Tribal Mark's life and his. Ify, Skepta's mother, emigrated to London in 1980 from Nigeria, where she had endured the civil war. She met Joseph Sr., Skepta's father and another immigrant from Nigeria, there. The couple's children, Jamie, often known as JME, the rapper; Jason, a graphic designer and artist; and Julie, a well-known broadcaster and former NME Awards host, all went on to follow such unique occupations that The Guardian once questioned, "Are the Adenugas Britain's most creative family?"

“One day I wanna make the Skepta biopic”

Skepta grew up in north London on the Meridian estate with his brothers. He remembers, "It was in between all these different areas," adding that this provided them with a special viewpoint on the postcode wars that broke out on all fronts. "We knew everyone, you know, even though some people didn't like them, didn't like them, didn't like them."

He would come downstairs, open the front door, and leave it that way every day when his parents departed for work: "People would just be walking in my house." While I was producing beats, I turned to see a new person. I would ask, "Hey, what's up?" There used to occasionally be folks rolling and smoking in my home. This person, who I have never met before, is just chilling. That was the kind of place I lived in.

His father's real "open-door" policy was modeled after his own, where "people from all cultures, walks of life" were invited to party all night and crash on the sofa. Furthermore, Skepta muses, "I believe that being the oldest child has always just motivated me to cultivate." Every time I see everyone together, I want to watch magic happen in that melting pot.

It was a mindset that characterized Tribal Mark's cooperative approach. Skepta thinks that Okechukwu is a creative outlet, saying, "We just believe in ourselves, because he's done so many different things." It took a few years for the movie to finally come to be, but it started with their shared insights. Talking about life, how far we've gone as individuals, and how we think—about our mental health, our trauma, our disassociation from our family origins, and ultimately how it's made us who we are today—we would simply be talking on the phone, the rapper claims.

For the scene where children gather at Mark's house and the one where his mother chastises him for hanging out with someone who is troublesome, he mined his own tale; Ify voiced similar worries about her oldest son. He adds, "It's really hard to look back sometimes, but...," to his description of the movie as "a therapy movie." I enjoy examining my own motivations. After watching this, everyone will be able to say, "Wow, OK, I understand why I'm like this." He gained a better understanding of his parents via creating Tribal Mark: "My mother was in the war. In the same room as my dad. Indeed, they made every effort to pursue a "better life."

According to promotional materials, Skepta's directorial debut "features a 90% minority ethnic cast and production team, a first of its kind in British cinema." It was only natural, he claims: "The movie selected those characters. The tale is set in Nigeria, but we do have ideas to make it more of an immigrant story—that is, a story about people who are living somewhere other than their parents' hometown.

The title of the new album alludes to "coming from a country where we eat with our hands - but the knife and fork is seen as something that's like going up in the world," and the film contains many bird's eye view shots of Nigerian cuisine. Therefore, the way these two projects bridge the gap between the lives his parents left behind and the accoutrements of an award-winning London rapper is what ties them together.

“Right now,” Skepta says, “if someone brought out a plate of jollof and chicken, I’d be over the moon. But sometimes I’d starve myself to go to a fashion party with two knives on the right and two on the left. They bring out four pieces of asparagus with a little tangerine sitting on top. They think that I’m supposed to like this! It’s that juxtaposition of upper-echelon and living raw in Nigeria and showing that Mark… all he wants is a plate of jollof.”

‘Tribal Mark’ is in Everyman Cinemas until February 11. Tickets will be discounted to £13 to ensure accessibility for all communities to enjoy