The Mercury Prize winning British-Nigerian rapper, producer, and artist Skepta has shared his latest release “Can’t Play Myself (A Tribute To Amy).”
The track is an atmospheric and evocative house track sampling Amy Winehouse’s 2006 single “Tears Dry On Their Own” (cleared for release by the Amy Winehouse Foundation), produced alongside Jammer. Skepta has been teasing the track out in various sets over the summer including to a rapturous crowd during his set at Arcadia, Glastonbury, and to eager fans at Ushuaia over the summer. With Skepta’s new label Más Tiempo growing a cult following over the past few months since its’ launch in April, appetite for an official release of this bootleg has been huge.
A veteran of the U.K. grime scene, MC, producer, and label owner Skepta was influential in the genre’s shift from the underground to the pop charts, as well as its creative and commercial resurgence during the mid-2010s. With the release of his fourth album, 2016’s Konnichiwa, he made his commercial and critical breakthrough, winning that year’s Mercury Prize and earning gold certification.
2019’s Ignorance Is Bliss fared just as well on the U.K. charts and spawned his highest-charting single to date, “Greaze Mode.” As his star continued to rise on the global scene, he collaborated with the likes of Chip and Young Adz for 2020’s Insomnia, as well as with J Balvin for 2021’s “Nirvana” from his All In EP.
Earlier this month it was announced that thirteen years after its release, the video for Amy Winehouse’s classic “Back To Black” has entered the YouTube billion views club, marking Winehouse’s first video to reach the milestone.
The track “finds Winehouse spiraling into nihilistic abandon but wrapped in 60s girl group harmonies and symphonic strings.” The black and white Phil Griffin-directed video was shot at Abney Park Cemetery in northeast London, and features Winehouse leading an elegantly-dressed cast of characters in a funeral procession.
Buy or stream “Can’t Play Myself (A Tribute To Amy).”
