Skepta's Más Tiempo: Why Grime's Biggest Innovator Moved Into House Music

The easy headline is "rapper becomes DJ." It's also wrong. Skepta's Más Tiempo isn't a celebrity dabble. It's one of grime's defining figures using house music as a full cultural platform: a record label, an event brand, a season-long Ibiza residency and a second identity built on the same instincts that made him a generational MC. In 2026 the project hit a new gear, with a Saturday residency in the Club Room at Hï Ibiza and a fresh EP built for the floor. This is a working DJ and producer's look at what Más Tiempo actually is, why it's more credible than the cynics assumed, and what it says about where UK club culture is heading. Facts below were checked against current sources in June 2026.

Más Tiempo at a glance

• What it is: a house and tech-house label and event brand founded by Skepta and Jammer in 2022. "Más Tiempo" means "more time" in Spanish.

• 2026 residency: Skepta presents Más Tiempo every Saturday in the Club Room at Hï Ibiza, 2 May to 3 October (23 weeks), the same night Black Coffee holds the main Theatre.

• New music: the Más Tiempo Vol. 2 EP landed on 25 April 2026 (three club tracks: Do It SK, The Whistle Tune, Play Me Right), ahead of a long-promised album, Fork And Knife, his first in seven years.

• The credentials: Skepta is a Mercury Prize winner (Konnichiwa, 2016) and a founding member of Boy Better Know, one of the strongest names UK music can point a new audience with.

• The roots: Skepta and Jammer were teenage DJs before grime. The dance turn is a return, not a pivot.

Why Skepta moving into house actually matters

When a major rapper steps behind the decks, the default reaction is suspicion: another celebrity renting credibility from a scene. Más Tiempo earns a different read for one reason. Skepta isn't borrowing house culture, he's building inside it. There's a label with a catalogue, an event brand with its own identity, a residency he has to fill every week for five months, and original productions with his name on the writing credits. That's not a guest spot; it's a second career with overheads.

It matters because of who is doing it. This is not a minor artist chasing relevance. Skepta won the 2016 Mercury Prize with Konnichiwa, beating David Bowie, Radiohead and Kano, on grime's highest-charting album, then spent the next decade as a fashion-world fixture and one of UK music's biggest global names. When someone with that reach commits to house, it drags a new audience across the line: UK rap fans, fashion crowds and casual listeners who'd never otherwise book a tech-house night. For a genre that constantly worries about its audience ageing, that's not a gimmick. It's a pipeline.

What is Más Tiempo?

Más Tiempo, Spanish for "more time", launched in 2022 as a house and tech-house imprint and event series from Skepta and his Boy Better Know partner Jammer. The team frames it as "a movement, from Africa to London, to Ibiza," spanning production, DJs and events rather than just releases. The debut release, the Mas Murder EP, paired a Skepta and Jammer collaboration with a Jammer, J Kolo and Ossie cut: a statement that this was a real label giving fellow house producers a platform "on their own terms," not a one-off.

The brand launched in the most London way possible, with a party at KOKO on 30 April as part of the venue's first-birthday programme, joined by Jammer, Benji B, J Kolo and Ossie. Since then Más Tiempo has scaled into serious rooms, including a sold-out London show at Drumsheds alongside Green Velvet, DJ EZ, Loco Dice and SYREETA. That trajectory, from a club anniversary to a warehouse-scale London event to an Ibiza residency, is the tell. Más Tiempo operates like a proper dance brand, with a Bandcamp catalogue, a roster beyond its founders and a curatorial identity. The "event brand" part is the clever bit. Instead of Skepta simply being booked as a name, Más Tiempo gives him a platform he controls, the way a label boss curates a stage. It's the difference between being a headliner and being a host.

From grime authority to club authority

Here's the context the "rapper turned DJ" framing always misses: Skepta and Jammer were DJs first. Both cut their teeth spinning records as teenagers, and Skepta literally started out DJing for his brother JME, before grime existed as a named genre. He has spoken about an early education built on house CDs and speed-garage tape packs, the same UK lineage that runs through the garage and bassline revival happening right now. Grime itself was always assembled by people who understood the dancefloor. The move into house is less a U-turn than a return to a starting point.

The catalyst was a single, audacious booking: Skepta's Circoloco debut at DC-10 in August 2022. He walked to the decks in a white cap echoing his Mercury-winning album cover and played a set of tech house and UK sounds, at one point folding Jamie Jones' Vault Mix of Cajmere's "Percolator" into a flash of his own "Shutdown". Choosing to test the idea there, in front of one of the most credibility-conscious crowds on the island rather than on a safe pop stage, told you how seriously it was meant. The reaction settled the question. Patrick Topping, Plastician and Chip praised it publicly, Loco Dice and The Martinez Brothers reached out, and Jamie Jones reposted the set. When the gatekeepers of the room welcome you in, it isn't a novelty booking anymore.

That night also carried a personal charge. The modern Más Tiempo project is tied to the late Virgil Abloh, Skepta's friend and an Ibiza DJ-culture fixture, who encouraged him to rediscover his DJing roots, and Skepta has described feeling Abloh's energy in the booth during that DC-10 debut. He has put the mindset plainly, telling Mixmag: "I've always known I'm more than a rapper... I want to show my attention to detail and relentless hard work ethic in different ways, and DJing is one of them." That's the tell: the same obsessive craft that built his grime catalogue, pointed at a new room.

Hï Ibiza 2026: why the Club Room residency changes the scale

A one-off festival booking proves nothing. A 23-week Ibiza residency is a different commitment entirely, and that's what Más Tiempo took on for 2026, running every Saturday in the Club Room at Hï Ibiza from 2 May to 3 October. Hï frames the night as a creative platform to explore new textures in contemporary house, built on warm grooves and uplifting energy. The Club Room lineup across the season includes Dennis Ferrer, East End Dubs, Loco Dice, DJ EZ, Luuk van Dijk, Olive F, Adam Ten and Arielle Free, with Skepta himself a recurring presence rather than an occasional name on the poster.

The scale point is the room next door. On the same Saturdays, Black Coffee holds Hï's main Theatre, the deeply emotional, spiritual end of big-room house, with a guest list running through Dixon, Kerri Chandler, Kabza De Small, Guy Gerber, Damian Lazarus, Marco Carola and CamelPhat. Putting Más Tiempo in the Club Room on a Black Coffee Saturday is a deliberate piece of positioning: it places Skepta's project inside the most respected house night on the island, on the busiest night of the week, in front of a crowd that came for serious house. You don't get that slot on novelty. For the full map of where this sits among the island's nights, see our guide to the best Ibiza parties for house music in 2026.

Does the music actually work as house?

This is the question that decides whether Más Tiempo is a cultural story or a real one, and 2026 gave it an answer. The Más Tiempo Vol. 2 EP, released 25 April 2026, is three tracks of tech house and piano house (Do It SK, The Whistle Tune and Play Me Right), written by Skepta and built specifically for the dancefloor ahead of the Hï season. They're not rap records with a four-to-the-floor kick bolted on; they're club tools, designed to function in a room.

That's the honest test for any crossover artist: would a DJ who'd never heard of you still play the record? On the evidence of the Vol. 2 material, which is rolling, hook-driven, piano-led house aimed squarely at peak-time, the answer is increasingly yes. Skepta is also finishing Fork And Knife, billed as a celebratory album and his first in seven years, which suggests the rap and the house aren't replacing each other so much as running in parallel. A practitioner's view: the productions don't reinvent house, and they don't need to. They're competent, floor-functional and improving, which is more than most celebrity dance turns ever manage, and the reason DJs outside his own circle have started reaching for them.

What Más Tiempo says about UK club culture in 2026

Step back and Más Tiempo is part of a bigger pattern. UK underground sound has spent the last few years crossing over in every direction at once: garage and bassline back in the charts, grime figures moving into house, club culture and rap audiences blending in a way that would have seemed unlikely a decade ago. Skepta carrying a grime audience into a Hï Club Room residency is the most visible version of a wider truth. In 2026, the walls between UK rap, garage and house are thinner than they've ever been.

It also reflects where the longevity is. A touring rap career has a ceiling; a credible DJ and label brand can run for decades and travel globally with far lower overheads. For an artist as strategic as Skepta, independent since the Boy Better Know days and vocal about owning his work, Más Tiempo isn't a hobby. It's infrastructure for the next twenty years. Whether or not the sets convert every purist, the project is doing something genuinely useful: proving a UK rap icon can build inside dance music rather than just visiting it.

FAQ

What is Skepta's Más Tiempo?

A house and tech-house record label and event brand founded by Skepta and Jammer in 2022. "Más Tiempo" means "more time" in Spanish. It releases music, runs club nights (it launched at KOKO and has played Drumsheds), and in 2026 holds a season-long residency at Hï Ibiza.

Where and when is Skepta's Más Tiempo Ibiza residency in 2026?

Every Saturday in the Club Room at Hï Ibiza, from 2 May to 3 October 2026 (23 weeks), on the same night Black Coffee plays the main Theatre.

Is Skepta actually a DJ, or just a rapper DJing?

Both Skepta and Jammer were DJs as teenagers, before grime, and Skepta started out DJing for his brother JME. He now writes and releases his own house records and made an acclaimed Circoloco debut at DC-10 in 2022, so it's a return to DJing rather than a pure pivot.

What is the Más Tiempo Vol. 2 EP?

A three-track house EP released on 25 April 2026 (Do It SK, The Whistle Tune and Play Me Right), written by Skepta and built for his Hï Ibiza residency.

Is Skepta releasing a new album?

Yes. He has said he is finishing Fork And Knife, described as a celebratory album and his first studio LP in seven years, expected later in 2026.

Why did Skepta move into house music?

He has said he's always known he's "more than a rapper" and wants to channel his work ethic into new forms. The modern Más Tiempo project was also inspired by his late friend Virgil Abloh, who encouraged him to rediscover DJing.

Sources

• Mixmag and The Face interviews with Skepta and Jammer on Más Tiempo, the house transition and the KOKO launch.

• Highsnobiety and Mixmag coverage of Skepta's August 2022 Circoloco and DC-10 debut and the Virgil Abloh tribute.

• DJ Mag and Ibiza Spotlight coverage of the 2026 Hï Ibiza Club Room residency; Hï Ibiza official residency pages (Más Tiempo and Black Coffee, Saturdays, 2 May to 3 October 2026).

• NME, DORK and TRENCH coverage of the Más Tiempo Vol. 2 EP (25 April 2026) and Fork And Knife album news.

• Resident Advisor listing for the Más Tiempo Drumsheds show; Wikipedia for Konnichiwa and the 2016 Mercury Prize.

This guide is part of House of MNEEMO's ongoing coverage of the electronic and club music scene, written by London-based DJ and producer MNEEMO, with millions of streams to his name and a party series running through some of London's best clubs. For where Más Tiempo sits among the island's nights, read the best Ibiza parties for house music in 2026; for the UK roots Skepta came up on, see why UK garage never really left.