Skint Records was established in Brighton in 1995 by Damian Harris, JC Reid and Tim Jeffery as a subsidiary of Loaded Records, and Norman Cook’s “Santa Cruz” was its first release that year. The label became closely tied to the British big beat scene of the 1990s and to the Brighton club night Big Beat Boutique. Cook’s 1998 album as Fatboy Slim, You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby, reached number one in the UK, while X-Press 2’s “Lazy” peaked at number two on the UK singles chart.
A Sony deal followed in 1998, and BMG Rights Management acquired the label in 2014. Skint put out the Brassic Beats album series between 1996 and 1998 and issued the compilation We Are Skint in 2002. Its Under 5’s imprint ran from 1997 to 2001 before returning as a digital-only label in 2009. Drum and bass forms a smaller strand of its output: Noisia’s “Gutterpump” came out on Skint in 2006, and DJ Marky’s remix of “Praise You” followed in 2018. Friction has also released music on the label.
