Fani Ⓕ

“Why Is It Okay for White People and Not Black People to Grow Old in Music?” —Skepta challenges racial double standards in aging for Black rappers In a new interview with British GQ promoting his first full-length album in seven years, ‘The Fork and Knife’, Skepta, now 44, addressed the long-running debate about rappers continuing past 40—sparked years earlier by André 3000’s comments that he found rapping at that age “weird” and inauthentic Skepta rejected the idea of an age limit on the art form. He admitted briefly questioning whether he should still rap but ultimately decided he is “still making the best music.” As long as he is saying things appropriate for this stage of his life, he sees “no age on rap.” He then zeroed in on what he views as a deeper problem projected onto artists like André 3000: the notion that rap is somehow juvenile. “Someone’s put in his head that it’s juvenile to rap,” Skepta said. “Why can Iggy Pop grow old and still be on stage with his top off doing rock music, but we can’t? All of them, all the rock bands. [But] Black rappers get to 35, 38 and start panicking. So why is it okay for white people and not Black people to grow old in music?” Calling it a self-imposed limitation, he urged Black artists to stop buying into the narrative. “This is something Black artists need to stop doing to themselves. The stuff we’ve got is a blessing, and the kids need more people who are speaking up for the culture, to stay in the culture and carry the work on.”