KhakiKid: the Dublin upstart expanding the sound of Irish rap

NME

“I‘ma council baby / Had nothing but dreams”, spits Abdu Huss, better known as KhakiKid over the menacing house party bassline of new single ‘Underbite’. As the accompanying video cuts between murky shots of pals pushing each other around in a shopping trolley, the track perfectly captures the feelings of turmoil and boredom around growing up. It’s a bruising flex we haven’t heard before from the 22-year-old, who is poised to be Ireland’s next great rap hero.

Speaking to NME from his sun-flooded Dublin bedroom over Zoom, Huss waves his hands around his former workspace. “I’ve been much more experimental recently rather than just doing things in this room by myself,” he says. “I’ve honed in on working with my friends and it’s made my music so much better.” He adds that collaboration has led to a new-found lyrical confidence, pushing him to lean into pressing themes of identity.

Though heavily immersed in Ireland’s beating heart of creativity, Huss has more in common with Stateside giants like Tyler, The Creator and the late Mac Miller than anything on his own patch – his sound flickers between glossy jazz undercurrents and heavy-hitting production. It’s something he attributes to his brother giving him a 50 Cent CD at the age of eight, which helped him escape questions around his own identity, having been raised as an Irish native of Arabic descent, leaving him feeling stranded between two worlds.

Today, KhakiKid has been awakened to a newfound pride around his multiculturalism – and is thriving as he pushes his sound forwards. Next month, he’ll tackle his first UK headline tour, playing institutions such as London’s Camden Assembly, YES Manchester and Brighton’s tastemaking beachside festival, The Great Escape. It’s an opportunity he’s looking to seize with both hands en route to world domination. “It’s an immensely exciting time for me,” he says, smiling. “Everything’s kicking off.”

NME: ‘Underbite’ is heavier, sonically and thematically, than anything you’ve done before. How did that change of pace come about?

“It came through working with other people. Previously, I’d just write the hook and that would guide the direction, but then co-writers would make a hook about a certain topic and I couldn’t just start writing about my usual stuff. I had to start writing to match that. It was a really cool experiment to test my writing ability. It definitely doesn’t match any of the other music I’ve put out before but I really enjoyed writing it. There were very real things about my life that I hadn’t really broached that before. I’ve dipped into it, but this was everything, nothing was hidden.

The song is an honest portrait of growing up – how did it feel to process the turbulent emotions of your teenage years?

“Definitely, I feel like 17 is such a weird age. You’re not really an adult, but you feel like one. All you can really do is piss around on the streets. It’s also about being young and having to deal with particularly bad things in your life when you’re really not equipped. Back then you’d think you weren’t affected by those shitty things happening, I’d take on the alpha-male approach. Now, you look back on how you reacted to those situations and how they affected you.”

Was it cathartic rapping about your identity, given you haven’t openly explored the topic before? 

“Absolutely, back then I just ignored it but there were very real things worth addressing. It’s about valuing my past more and even coming to terms with the very obvious identity issues I had back then and probably still now. Like, there are lines about my dad in there, at that point in my life, there were moments where I thought, ‘I don’t need a dad’ or whatever, ‘I’m grand, I’m here’, but then later on in life, I’ll watch a movie and there will be a father figure-type character and it will really hit home, and I’ll be wiping my eyes a little bit. You realise it all makes sense.

“I also think recently its hit home how lost I actually was because my dad’s not even in my life. So I’m Arab and Irish, but then I don’t have a connection with the Arab, so I just identified as Irish. Growing up [in Dublin], Irish people are really good at making you aware you’re not Irish, especially hanging out with older kids on the estate. So all I relate to is being Irish and then everyone’s telling me I’m not – it leads to an inner turmoil. There’s almost a level of shame; I wanted to disassociate from that element of me, whereas now I like it and I’m comfortable with the fact that I’m from a multicultural background and I want to put my identity at the forefront.”

Growing up, you found solace in music by looking to your Stateside heroes – how important were those artists to you?

“I really resonated with that music because if I’m not Irish and I don’t connect with my Arabic background, then I can relate to whatever I want because I’m in no man’s land. So I just got to choose whatever was cool and I held that close. I was listening to loads of Outkast and 50 Cent, I wanted to look like them and everything. It was a huge influence in me growing up, now I’ve obviously widened my influences because American culture was a huge part of it.”

You also like to cut loose and embrace a bit of humour in your music… 

“Yeah, I grew up watching so much comedy it’s still embedded in me, particularly the way people dealt with heavier topics. It’s the kind of thing that you develop as you grow up. On the estate you’re just sitting around smoking and playing football, so if you’re around people for long enough, something has to be funny. You’re not really a philosopher back then, you’re just taking the piss out of each other.

“If someone was making fun of you and you didn’t want to fight them, you’d have to make fun of them or get to the joke before them. When I came to writing music, it just happened to flow out of me that way. It’s a fun challenge to find the humour in things.”

“I want to put my multicultural identity at the forefront of my music”

It’s no secret just how popular Ireland’s hip-hop scene is at the moment, with rappers emerging from Dublin but also from Cork and Limerick. Do you feel connected to that community? 

“I’m very proud of it because there’s a lot of people in Dublin I know from before music from being at the same parties or events, so it’s really sick seeing everyone evolve at the same time. Dublin is so small that everyone’s everywhere, so it’s really collaborative. I’m so excited to see where everyone will be even in a few years time. My live band Bricknasty have really been pivotal in getting me to where I am now. They’ve opened me up to more ways to write songs and different ways to perform.”

There’s a massively exciting chapter ahead next month with your first UK tour. How thrilled are you to be seizing the opportunity to play live? 

“For me the best part of making music is playing the shows. It still baffles me that strangers come out and buy tickets to come and see me for an hour or whatever. Even the fact they take time out of their day to watch the stuff that you make in your bedroom. I think it’s really important to give them a good show when people have put it in their calendar to come and see you. For me, the shows feel better because you realise it’s not for you, it’s for the people coming.”

Looking to the future, how is your bucket list shaping up?

“The goal is just to eventually go on a world tour. It’s crazy for music to take you to these places that you’d have never been otherwise, it’s kind of nuts. Even just doing this UK tour, when I do the Dublin shows, I always convince myself that everyone in the crowd has some sort of connection to me through family or friends, even though the shows are too big for that. When you’re doing these UK shows, you know they’re strangers and they definitely don’t know me, so the thought of doing that on a worldwide scale is just surreal.”

KhakiKid’s new single ‘Underbite’ is out now

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