Skepta & Fred Again.. Surprise The Scene With ‘Skepta .. Fred’

Skepta and Fred again.. have been circling each other all summer, and now they’ve finally sealed the deal with a project nobody saw coming. Out of nowhere, the pair dropped a five-track EP, simply titled Skepta .. Fred, and it’s exactly the chaos meets clarity blend you’d expect from grime heavyweight and dance music’s people’s producer.

The rollout has been pure disruption. Earlier this year, they crashed the UK charts with “Victory Lap,” a Skepta x Fred x PlaqueBoyMax link-up that shot straight to #4, giving Skepta his highest-ever chart peak. Then came “Back 2 Back," a tune that doubled as a mission statement and a festival weapon, teased across stages all summer long, including Skepta's very own Big Smoke. Fans expected maybe another single, but not this: a full EP, dropped without warning, that stitches grime grit to euphoric, big-room energy.

When Fred again.. speaks about Skepta, it’s with the raw energy of a fan who still can’t quite believe he’s in the room with one of the greats. That energy is stamped all over the duo’s surprise collaborative tape.

“We made one song, then we made two, then we made this,” Fred wrote in his latest instagram post. “This is me as a fan of Skepta my whole life being like ‘look, Skep is the GOAT.’ From Back 2 Back to Victory Lap to 21 Years. No one can say they’ve done what he’s done and still doin it.”

The tracklist is tight but heavy: “Victory Lap” and “Back 2 Back” bookend three fresh cuts; “London,” “Last 1s Left,” and “21 Years.” No extra features, no filler, no fluff. Just 16 minutes of sharp grime verses crashing into Fred’s emotionally charged production. It’s not trying to be a manifesto; it’s simply two artists at the top of their game having fun and sounding unstoppable.

For Fred, this wasn’t about making another remix or DJ ready track. It was about finally creating an original club track with Skepta that didn’t just orbit the legend’s catalogue but expanded it. “It’s always been a dream of mine to make a club tune like this with him that’s not like a remix or anything,” he admits.

The result? A tape that feels both intimate and explosive. It’s Skepta stepping once again into uncharted territory without ever leaving his roots behind, and Fred again.. proving why his instinct for collaboration has made him one of the most compelling forces in electronic music today.

If Skepta has spent the last 21 years shaping grime into global culture, then this collab is a reminder: he’s still doing it. And if Fred again.. grew up in awe of that journey, he’s now a part of it — cementing the bridge between two generations of UK music in real time.