But at this point Skinnyman’s future still looked bright. Def Jam in the US showed an interest in his demos and there was talk of getting RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan involved on a track. Tim Westwood was rinsing his Straight Outta Jail dub and even mainstream Radio 1 were set to promote him – no small matter in the days before YouTube, Spotify or even 1Xtra arrived to compete for our attention.

And then everything started to fall apart. He found himself serving another one of the prison bids which have punctuated his adult life (“laws of medication,” he nods to the bifter in his hand ​“can sometimes have me in the big house”). Skinnyman was midway through an 18 month stretch when Paul Martin came to visit with the news Talkin’ Loud’s parent label Mercury had decided to wind down operations and close the office. They were all out of a job.

On the verge of turning thirty, Skinny was feeling like his opportunity had been missed. An 18-year-old Dizzee Rascal had just released Boy In Da Corner and to Skinny the early days of grime reminded him of the early days of hip-hop. This combined with a feeling of guilt over having somehow let Martin down on a personal level to leave Skinny in an introspective mode. ​“For the first time I was able to reflect on my own thoughts of who I am, what I wanted to represent and what I wanted to say.”

His time inside was a golden opportunity to escape the daily hustle. ​“For me to go to prison was almost like how some people go to university to work on their degree. I came out of prison with what we now know to be the Council Estate of Mind album written as poems on the back of prison applications. The whole thing.”

With his release the daily hustle started again. Still not totally convinced music was worth pursuing, he hooked up with DJ Flip. In an era before home studios became commonplace Flip was fortunate enough to have his own setup. ​“He would be like, ​‘c’mon, let’s do this music’ and I’d be like, ​‘I’ve got children, they’ve got hungry bellies, they’ve got holes in their shoes, I need to do what I need to do, and it ain’t music. Music doesn’t even make the agenda of the list.’

“Now I can only thank him, because he was instrumental in saying, ​‘so what have you got to do? So what time will you be finishing? 11 o’clock at night? Well, come round here and we’ll work till three or four in the morning.’ No charge, no studio fees, no nothing.” They haven’t spoken for years having fallen out over what Skinny calls a silly squabble, but he still speaks highly of Flip.