In 2004, Labour was in government and the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) had been in existence for five years. During the Labour years, universities had seen a surge in applicants from low-income backgrounds due to the Teaching and Higher Education Act 1998, which introduced student loans but also tuition and maintenance fees. However, for rapper Skinnyman, on his debut (and only) album Council Estate Of Mind, he tells the story of how Labour’s promises for a better future were out of reach for people like him.

It was a polemic and illustrative depiction of life in Britain for young, working-class people. But for those just trying to find the means to stay alive, on Council Estate Of Mind, Skinnyman asks bigger questions of the Labour government: about the things they had promised through the various schemes and initiatives, which the Conservatives later scrapped or modified. “I’m in the same slums, raisin’ the funds, in the city where the yout’ man are blazin’ the guns / Just look how this United Kingdom has come, within the council estates where man’ll fight over crumbs,” Skinnyman raps on the album’s title track, seeking to understand how university could even be a possibility when he comes from a neglected microcosm within society.

Council Estate Of Mind was released in 2004, six years before the austerity cuts led by the Tory government swept the UK and affected the country’s most vulnerable and struggling people. Skinnyman sought to tell his own story that, for years, had been told on the behalf of the working class by British media, often misrepresenting them. At a time where youth violence, school exclusions and resources are scarce, the central theme of Council Estate Of Mind (as suggested by its title) is unfortunately still a prevalent one in 2019.

“And this ain’t no whites or a blacks thing, it’s if you’re livin’ in the council flats and on a brap ting / They got us on a lab rat thing, and it’s funny to me how easily we’re all adapting,” he rhymes on “Fuck The Hook”. Granted, Skinnyman falls short of recognising the systemic differences between the white and black working-class, but from his perspective, he understands that it’s the system and the government that has failed them.

The skits which thread the album together bear a resemblance to those featured on Psychodrama, Dave’s debut album. Although the conversations on Council Estate Of Mind are taken from 1980s film Made In Britain, the exchange between Trevor and the authorities mirrors the one between Dave and his therapist, in the sense that both of them see their lives placed in the hands of the authorities. While Dave is vulnerable enough to allow his therapist in, allowing him to share his truth, Skinnyman uses the skits taken from Made In Britain to paint a broader picture of the circumstances many young people in Britain find themselves in—a lack of guidance, intervention, and community support.

Sonically, the album was built to stand the test of time. There are few moments, if any, where the production by DJ Flip, DJ Noize, Baby J, Stoned Soldiers and Adam M sounds dated, allowing Skinnyman’s writing to be the centrepiece of the album’s narrative. The production, heavily influenced by soul, jazz and the blues, pushed UK hip-hop into the underground as club-ready sounds like grime were emerging; however the early-to-mid-2000s produced some of UK hip-hop’s most prolific wordsmiths, such as Skinnyman, who found themselves within the underground but still able to tell uniquely British stories over soul-led rap beats.

There was little indication at that time, that road rap would come to supersede UK hip-hop—besides the success of grime—both culturally and commercially. With the rise in youth violence in the mid-to-late 2000s, Council Estate Of Mind merely skimmed the surface as to the levels at which it was becoming a public health concern. In hindsight, this album and Dizzee’s Boy In Da Corner represented a fork in the road, but also showed clear distinctions between the black and white working class. However, few albums such as these two speak to the UK’s social ills, acknowledging both race and class in the process.

Fifteen years after its release, Council Estate Of Mind stands as a seminal body of work within the British rap arena. It wasn’t that Skinnyman had predicted the future of Britain through his writing, but what makes his debut a classic worth revisiting in 2019 is that not much has changed. On the contrary: it’s a sombre wake-up call suggesting that things have gotten worse.