Scroobius Pip

David Peter Meads (born 3 August 1981), known professionally as Scroobius Pip, is an English actor and podcaster as well as a former spoken word poet and hip hop recording artist from Stanford-le-Hope, Essex.

He first gained prominence as one half of hip hop duo Dan le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip sparked by their debut single "Thou Shalt Always Kill".

He manages his own record label, Speech Development Records.

When he had written a full spoken word set and saved enough money to live for a year without income, he quit his job and toured the country in a 1987 Toyota Space Cruiser.

Seeking out gig listings for each new town he visited, he turned up and performed his set to the fans queuing outside the venues, with mixed results.

After a few months crossing the country, Scroobius Pip moved back home and decided to focus on London and Essex, attending four or five spoken word shows, open mic nights or poetry slams each week – anywhere that would let him perform.

Various producers expressed a desire to work with him, but it was the beats of former HMV colleague Dan le Sac that captured his attention and led to the formation of Dan le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip.

He hosted the award-winning weekly radio show The Beatdown on XFM in the late 2000s and currently hosts the Distraction Pieces Podcast.

In 2002 whilst working in an HMV store he made the decision to start saving his writing.

Scroobius Pip's debut album No Commercial Breaks was self-released in 2006, marking the start of his label Speech Development Records.

Originally limited to a run of 1,000 copies, the album quickly sold out, resulting in various online bootlegs.

Since March 2007 they have undertaken multiple UK, US and European tours and have appeared at numerous festivals including Glastonbury, Reading and Leeds, Bestival, Coachella, Lowlands, Pukkelpop and Fuji Rock Festival.

In 2007, Scroobius Pip put a shortlist of his poems up on MySpace and asked artists and illustrators to submit their interpretations.

The only rule was that the poem had to be included in the artwork, in full and unabridged.

Within the first few days he had received a small but passionate response.

This number grew over the following year, resulting in hundreds of submissions from all over the world.

Opening with a foreword by Nick Frost, Poetry in (e) Motion sees nine of Pip's poems illustrated by his fans with an impressive range of styles inspired by everything from street art, tattoos and crime noir movies.

Dan le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip is a hip hop duo combining electronic beats with sung, spoken and rapped lyrics, their critically acclaimed debut album Angles became one of the leading independent releases of 2008.

Despite growing up in the same Essex town Stanford-le-Hope, the duo's paths barely crossed until they shared a Christmas season working at the Lakeside branch of HMV.

Dan Le Sac went on to book Scroobius Pip to play a gig he was promoting at the Fez Club (now Sakura) in Reading and around this time began remixing Scroobius Pip's debut solo album No Commercial Breaks.

Their first collaboration resulted in the track "Thou Shalt Always Kill", a dissection of modern British culture and a call to arms for individualism.

The track appealed to XFM's John Kennedy who aired it in demo form 24 hours after he had received the CD-R.

Pip set up a MySpace page with the solitary track, and the response was very favourable.

The pair borrowed £200 to make the music video.

Shunning major label offers, Dan le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip signed to the independent Sunday Best Recordings for their UK releases and Strange Famous Records for the United States.

Dan le Sac Vs Scroopius Pip have released three albums to date: Angles (2008), The Logic of Chance (2010) and Repent Replenish Repeat (2013).

The book was published in hardback on 26 March 2010 by Titan Books.

Released on 19 September 2011, the album entered and peaked at No. 35 on the UK albums chart.

Produced by Yila and Worgie, the record sees Scroobius Pip's lyrical dexterity and acclaimed blend of rap meets spoken-word play out across a collision of punk, rock and hip hop production.

Collaborators include Travis Barker of Blink-182, Danny Lohner aka Renholder of Nine Inch Nails, Sage Francis, XL Records boss Richard Russell, P.O.S, Zane Lowe, Aupheus, B. Dolan, Steve Mason of The Beta Band and Natasha Fox, who provides the vocals for "Feel It", a cover of Scroobius Pip's favourite Kate Bush song.

Poetry in (e) Motion is a collection of Scroobius Pip's poems illustrated by artists recruited via his MySpace page.

The album was re-released in 2012, a two CD special with a bonus disc featuring his 60-minute sold out spoken word show from the Royal Albert Hall on 21 November 2012.

Distraction Pieces is the second solo album by Scroobius Pip released in the UK on his own Speech Development Records and in the US on Strange Famous Records.

In August 2016, he released a book entitled Distraction Pieces.

He appears as French Bill, an assistant to Atticus, in the eight-part historical fiction series Taboo (2017) on BBC One and FX.

As a teenager, Scroobius Pip was inspired by punk music to buy a guitar and form various bands with his friends.

His musical tastes quickly grew to encompass genres including hip hop and jazz and he became interested in spoken word artists Gil Scott-Heron, Sage Francis and Saul Williams.

This encouraged him to go solo; the idea of having no one to rely on or blame other than himself was an appealing challenge.

He adopted his stage name from Edward Lear's poem "The Scroobious Pip".

He later explained: "I loved the story. It's about a creature that doesn't know what it is ...By the end [of the poem] he realises that he is simply The Scroobious Pip. He doesn't fit into any one category and can just be his own creature."