The first, and arguably only, thing you need to know about Good Morning Britain is that it is hosted by Piers Morgan. Since returning to the U.K. from the U.S. in a Sophie's choice swap deal for James Corden a few years ago, he has used the morning show to shout over people about subjects including gender fluidity, Ariana Grande, vegan foods, and , err, "gay sandwiches."
It's perhaps lucky, then, that the ruddy-faced Piers was off on Thursday morning when Skepta appeared on the show to promote his great new album, Ignorance Is Bliss. Skepta is doing the rounds at the moment with the usually media shy grime MC chatting with YouTube, Apple Music, and Capital FM in recent days. Good Morning Britain is a much wider platform, in terms of subject matter and audience make-up, though and it showed immediately when hosts Ben Shepherd and Susannah Reid had to awkwardly segway from a piece about the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings into a chat with the guy that wrote "Shutdown."
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Skepta mentioned that he was meant to appear the day before, therefore avoiding the juxtaposition between himself and elderly war veterans, and was quick to praise those who fought in WW2. Thirty seconds in and it is abundantly clear that this is not your average Skepta chat.
The rest of the interview was pleasant enough though, with Skepta saying he wants to be "the voice of change" for his young fans and stating his belief that "music and art changes the world." He was asked simultaneously about the idea that music has an influence on violent crime in London, and whether it is fair for musicians like himself to be held up as role models. His line stayed the same: "It's music that's saving everybody now."
Skepta ended the interview for thanking fans that have bought Ignorance Is Bliss, stating that the album has sold well and he doesn't need to be pushing it at this point. For anyone watching on YouTube, (the live interview went out around 8:20 a.m.), the interview ends with a prompt to watch a piece on a boy that woke up from a coma after smelling his favorite Lynx deodorant. A fitting end to an unusually surreal moment in Skepta's life.
