Alphonso Bondzie, known throughout the scene as Skibadee, emerged through London pirate radio in the early 1990s. City Sound Radio and later Kool FM placed him in the heart of a culture where MCing was rapidly moving from hosting records to becoming an artform with its own rhythm, identity and stars.

Skibadee’s breakthrough came as jungle itself accelerated. His fast, musical phrasing and ability to ride a breakbeat helped establish the double-time MC style that became synonymous with late-1990s drum & bass. Alongside figures including Stevie Hyper D and MC Det, he helped define the expectation that a top MC should add another rhythmic layer without losing contact with the crowd.

His partnership with Shabba D as SAS became one of the most recognisable MC combinations in the rave circuit. One Nation, Telepathy, Jungle Fever and countless tape packs carried his voice well beyond the venues themselves, while later collaborations and the SaSaSaS project introduced that energy to another generation.

Skibadee died on 27 February 2022. The scale of the reaction across jungle, drum & bass, grime and wider UK music reflected how far his influence had travelled. Rave Archive UK preserves the form in which many listeners first knew him: not as a studio biography, but live on the mic, inside the dance.