Idris Elba’s burgeoning career as a musician continues with aplomb, after the star showcased his rapping skills on a remix of Skepta’s single ‘Shutdown’ on Twitter yesterday.

The ‘Luther’ star uploaded his re-working of the British rapper’s recent single to SoundCloud on Monday and tweeted it to his fans, who immediately jumped in with their approval. “Sometimes you just have to SHUT "dem" DOWN. @Skepta. Do your ting my yout,” he said in the post. In the guest verse he added, Elba makes reference to his roles as Nelson Mandela, Stringer Bell and detective John Luther.

The collaboration is the result of a direct request made to Skepta back in March when the original mix of ‘Shutdown’ appeared back in March, when Elba tweeted “put me on the remix!!!! Cus I SHUT DOWN prime TV on the regular”.

Idris ElbaIdris Elba remixed Skepta's 'Shutdown', and it's awesome

His wish has not only been granted, the resulting remix is also doing pretty well for itself. In the 24 hours since it went up, the track has gone to Number 1 on the Billboard + Twitter Trending 140 chart with over 250,000 plays.

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Speaking about having the popular actor working with him, Skepta recently told radio station Capital Xtra: “Basically a lot of people have asked to jump on the ‘Shutdown’ remix, I’m not gonna front. But cos of quality control we wanted to make it really big: it’s all about spreading the British sound and culture.”

Elba has been recording music under the name of Driis since 2006, in addition to his better-known roles in television and film. Last year, he released an EP of music inspired by the work he did in preparation for his leading role in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, which was highly praised.

At the time, he said to NME that the EP was “part of a series of albums that I’m going to make called character pieces, character albums.” A James Bond album next? We can but hope.

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