Skepta’s Australian dates to go ahead after visa ban overturned

UK grime star Skepta’s two headlining slots at the Listen Out festival and sideshows in Sydney and Melbourne this month are going ahead after a visa ban was overturned.

In April, the minister for home affairs, Peter Dutton, turned down promoter Fuzzy’s visa application.

It cited his “criminal history” and that the musician (real name: Joseph Junior Adenuga) had “a risk of harm to the Australian community which is unacceptable”.

Skepta might have won a Mercury Prize, chosen by GQ magazine as one of Britain’s best-dressed men, and in April was installed as a chief in his Nigerian hometown in Ogun State bearing the chieftaincy title of Amuludun of Odo-Aje.

However, the man who grew up in the rough London suburb of Tottenham and admitted to packing a gun when he left his hood, had a long rap sheet.

In 2006 he spent a night in jail after getting involved in a late night altercation in a bar in Cyprus.

In 2009, he pleaded guilty to common assault over a fight on a London street and ordered to do 200 hours of community work.

At the end of the sentence, he declared “I will NEVER see another court room again.”

But in 2016 he was fined $2500 after an altercation in a Melbourne nightclub and ordered to pay his victim $10,000 for breaking three teeth.

Fuzzy took the visa ban to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

ABC News reported that Skepta argued his past assaults had been “spontaneous and impulsive”, and he had grown “emotionally and spiritually” in the past two years.

“I have channelled all my energies since early January 2016 towards excellence in the entertainment and music industry worldwide,” he said.

He further claimed he had become an activist “who uses a high-profile platform to raise awareness around issues associated with racism, youth socio-economic disadvantage and homelessness”.

During his Melbourne visit, he will meet up with his victim and personally apologise.

Based on his promise that he wouldn’t be going to nightclubs and “similar venues” during his Australian visit because he wanted “to rest as much as possible”, tribunal deputy president Justice Janine Stevenson overturned the ban.

She argued there was little risk of the musician re-offending while in Australia.

Aside from the two Listen Out shows, he is at the Melbourne Forum on Wednesday, September 26 and the Sydney Opera House the day after.