5岁的时候就对键盘兴起无比的好奇心，Skinner打从9岁就立下要出唱片的宏愿，一头栽进De La Soul、Beastie Boys的音乐空间。15岁的那一年，Skinner决定要将hip-hop玩出新花样，当下就将卧室改建成饶舌中心，18岁进一步吸收来自house节奏与当时刚萌芽的英国garage的养分，隔一年抱着取样机前往澳洲酒吧打工一整年，儘管自己的音乐跟garage的舞池派对文化产生互动，但是，Skinner希望自己的garage节奏不要与伦敦炫丽的舞池潮流一个样，决定化名为'The Streets'挺身为英国劳工阶层代言。by John BushMike Skinners recordings as the Streets marked the first attempt to add a degree of social commentary to Britains party-hearty garage/2-step (and later grime) movement. Skinner, a Birmingham native who later ventured to the capital, was an outsider in the garage scene, though his initial recordings appeared on Locked On, the premiere source for speed garage and, later, 2-step from 1998 to the end of the millennium. He spent time growing up in north London as well as Birmingham, and listened first to hip-hop, then house and jungle. Skinner made his first tracks at the age of 15, and during the late 90s, tried to start a label and sent off his own tracks while he worked dead-end jobs in fast food.At the end of 2000, he earned his first release when Locked On — already famous for a succession of burning club tracks from Tuff Jam, the Artful Dodger featuring Craig David, Dem 2, and Doolally — signed him for the homemade Has It Come to This? By the following year, the single hit Britains Top 20 and the inevitable full-length followed in early 2002. That album, Original Pirate Material, unlike most garage compilations and even the bare few production LPs, found a home with widely varying audiences, and correspondingly earned Skinner a bit of enmity from the wider garage community. By the end of the year, it had been released in the States as well, through Vice. After a quiet 2003, Skinner returned with A Grand Dont Come for Free, a concept record that pushed his production and performance eccentricities to a new level, but also resulted in a fresh wave of critical praise. A succession of live dates followed, after which Skinner began recording his third full-length, 2006s The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living, which shone a bright light on the vagaries of fame as Skinner had experienced it.