The Streets: 'Record deal was like prison'

Mike Skinner has compared having a recording contract to being in prison.

In an interview with The Sun, the Streets frontman confessed to feeling confined by his major label deal with Vice/Atlantic Records and insisted that he is happy to have fulfilled the terms of the deal with his latest release Computers And Blues.

"It's like ending a long prison stretch. I'm leaving in 11 weeks, when my contract ends. I'll be given my belongings and met at the gates by my criminal friends and we'll go out and re-offend within days," he explained.

"I'm not going to do The Streets anymore, I'm never going to be able to better this album. And that's a great feeling. There comes a time when you've had so much success, you've got so much money, there's so much madness, you tend to end up destroying yourself."

Skinner went on to say that he is looking forward to the freedom of being an independent artist again, adding: "I'm relieved I won't have to play that game anymore.

"I'm relieved to be outside of the traditional album cycle. I can do what I want now."