Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	91/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Blender
Entertainment Weekly	B
The Guardian
Los Angeles Times
NME	9/10
Pitchfork Media	9.1/10
Q
Rolling Stone
The Village Voice	B+

A Grand Don't Come for Free is the second studio album from British garage and hip hop act The Streets. It was released on 17 May 2004 and is listed in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. It is a rap opera which follows the story of its protagonist's relationship with a girl named Simone, alongside the mysterious loss of £1000 from his home (the eponymous "grand").

In the story, the protagonist loses £1000, or a "grand" in slang terms, and strives to recoup the money.

In his book The Story of the Streets Skinner explained his decision to create a story that ran through the album:

"The reason I decided to write A Grand Don't Come for Free as episodes from a single unfolding narrative was because I'd got so into my songwriting manuals and books by Hollywood screen-writing gurus – not just Robert McKee but Syd Field and John Truby as well – and I wanted to try and put what I'd learnt from them into practice. Every song needs a drama at the centre of it, and once you have the drama, the song writes itself – that's what I firmly believed, and still do believe. I'm not alone in this convicition, either. It's something pretty much all rappers seem to be sure about."

In the first track on the album, "It Was Supposed to Be So Easy", Skinner attempts several tasks during a day but they do not go according to plan. When he comes home he cannot find the thousand pounds he has saved and his television is broken. In the process of trying to recover the money he:

Like the Streets' debut album Original Pirate Material the album was recorded in a flat in south London, but this time in Skinner's own flat in which he had bought using the money he had received upon signing his publishing deal.

The front cover of the album features Skinner posing in a bus shelter at night. The bus shelter was located in Birmingham, where Skinner had grown up, but when Skinner revisited the site in 2012 he found that the shelter had been replaced with a more modern one.

The first single from the album, "Fit But You Know It" reached number four on the UK Singles Charts with the second single, "Dry Your Eyes" entering the UK Charts at number one. The album itself reached number one in the UK Album Charts, number eleven in Australia and number eighty-two in the United States.

...
Wikipedia