Scroobius Pip

David Meads entered the world in 1981 and grew up in Essex, England, where he first turned to poetry at age 24. He later took the stage name Scroobius Pip, a deliberate misspelling of an Edward Lear poem, and began performing spoken word pieces across the U.K. After completing his independently issued poetry collection No Commercial Breaks in 2006, he suspended his solo work to form an electronic hip-hop duo with Essex producer Daniel Stephens, who performs as Dan Le Sac. Operating under the name dan le sac Vs Scroobius Pip, the pair fused Pip’s witty poetry with Le Sac’s glitchy electronics, a sound that drew praise in both the U.K. and the United States. The duo issued two albums, among them 2008’s Angles, which reached the Top 40 in England, before each artist briefly shifted focus back to individual projects. Setting hip-hop aside, Pip pursued a rock-oriented direction on the 2011 solo album Distraction Pieces, which became a popular release and peaked at number 35 in the U.K.