Original Pirate Material: 2000-2003
The Streets started out as a group project but quickly became a one-man act as band members fell away. At the end of 2000, the Locked On label, who had success with The Artful Dodger featuring Craig David, agreed to release "Has It Come To This" under the name the Streets. Skinner moved from Birmingham to Brixton to pursue his recording career, he then moved to Camden Town for three years before returning to Brixton.
"Has It Come to This?" proved to be a breakthrough hit for the Streets, going top-twenty in March 2001. For his debut album, Original Pirate Material, Skinner wanted to take UK garage in a new direction with material reflecting the lifestyle of clubbers in Britain. The track "Let's Push Things Forward" reflects the philosophy of the album. The album was released and proved to be successful both with critics and the general public alike. In the UK, the album was nominated for the Mercury Prize and was favourite with the bookies to win it (it was later won by Ms. Dynamite). The Streets was nominated for best album, best urban act, best breakthrough artist and best British male artist in the 2002 BRIT Awards. The NME named it as one of their top five albums of 2002. The cover image is Towering Inferno by the acclaimed photographer Rut Blees Luxemburg.
Subsequent singles included "Don't Mug Yourself", "Weak Become Heroes" and "Let's Push Things Forward" which all reached the top forty in the UK. Many of his songs have a UK garage feel but have in the main found popularity in the 'indie' scene. Original Pirate Material had debuted and peaked at number twelve in the UK album charts, and wouldn't reach any higher until his next album was released.
The success of Original Pirate Material in the UK led to a US release of the album through Vice/Atlantic in late 2002. Though the album was not a commercial success in the States, it was received positively by Rolling Stone, Spin, the New York Times, Blender, USA Today and the Los Angeles Times all nominating it as one of the albums of the year. The album was named Entertainment Weekly's "album of the year". The album reached number two on the Billboard electronic charts and the top 20 on the independent and Heatseeker charts in the US in 2003.
