Top of the Pops is a British TV show that, on first glance, could be compared to American Bandstand. Like the CBS mainstay, it's a chart show, a haphazard smattering of a given week's best-selling artists playing in a TV studio to a bunch of awkward, half-clapping adolescents. It's also an institution, a point of nostalgia for at least two whole generations of people.But as you'll see in the video below, there's also something so effortlessly, clumsily British about Top of the Pops that I swear we created and exported classier shows just so that nobody would interfere with the original. That, at least, would explain why Skepta's legendary performance on Jools Holland was sleek, streamlined, and powerful. And why the video below shows Skepta performing on a special Christmas Day edition of Top of the Pops, office party decorations on the stage behind him, performing "Shutdown" while dressed as a mailman.After a wildly successful 2016 in which he released his fourth full-length album Konnichiwa to critical acclaim, Skepta can close the year out however he pleases. This was an excellent choice.
Follow Noisey on Twitter.