The Streets Return with Tame Impala-assisted "Call My Phone Thinking I'm Doing Nothing Better" from None of Us Are Getting Out of This Alive Mixtape (Island Records)

The Streets was a long-running musical project of English emcee and multi-instrumentalist Mike Skinner. Skinner was active as The Streets from 1994-2011 and released five full-length albums, one mixtape, an EP, and countless singles. However, following mass of amounts of critical and fan-acclaim, Mike Skinner suddenly decided to dissolve The Streets in 2011. It, then, fell to the wayside as one of his former projects, along with Grafiti and The Beats. Since the dissolution of The Streets, Skinner stayed relatively active, sporadically releasing music as The Darker The Shadow The Brighter The Light, The D.O.T. Tonga Balloon Gang, and, simply, as Mike Skinner. I can still remember diving around in my car, as a 16/17-year-old with my "little" sister (then, about 12-13) listening to The Streets' "Fit But You Know It," both of us expertly rhyming along every word is terrible faux-Cockney accents. A few years back, when I first created my Spotify account, I put together a fairly comprehensive, ever-evolving playlist featuring "Fit But You Know It," along with a bunch of other Streets stand-outs and Skinner-affiliated projects. Below, you'll see our 113-song Streets playlist, now titled Mike Skinner & The Streets (Mike Skinner Ltd.) to help you re-familiarize yourself.


To widespread surprise/bemusement, Mike Skinner quietly released two new tracks, "Burn Bridges" and "Sometimes I Hate My Friends More Than My Enemies," on streaming services in 2017, both credited to The Streets. The following year, Mike Skinner & The Streets went on two sold out UK tours, ushering in a full-fledged The Streets reunion; Skinner's current Streets line-up includes Kevin Mark Trail, Wayne Bennett, Robert Harvey (The Music, The D.O.T.) Cassell The Beatmaker, and, of course, Mike Skinner himself. Now, a few years later, Skinner has announced the first full-length Streets project since 2011's tandem releases, Cyberspace & Reds/Computers & Blues, fittingly titled None of Us Are Getting Out of This Alive. Billed as an officially released "mixtape," the self-described "Rap duets album" boasts a feature on every track, including the likes of Tame Impala, IDLES, Oscar #Worldpeace, Rob Harvey, and Chris Lorenzo. According to a press release, None of Us Are Getting Out of This Alive was originally planned as a TONGA/Tonga Balloon Gang project, however, "as night moved to day, and day moved to night, it... just didn't happen." Yesterday afternoon, along with the mixtape announcement, The Streets released the first music video/single from said project, "Call My Phone Thinking I'm Doing Nothing Better" featuring none other than Tame Impala frontman Kevin Parker. None of Us Are Getting Out of This Alive is now available for pre-order and will become widely available Friday, July 10, 2020 on Island Records/679.