Rebel with a cause: ‘We’re here to show love, so just do it’

On a wet Wednesday evening on Parnell Street, Dublin 1, the second edition of Cold Summit is under way – an underground rap night that has already accumulated a dedicated audience and will journey to Pot Duggans in Ennistymon in Clare in August. The back room of The Big Romance bar, known for its excellent acoustics and vinyl-only DJ policy, is full as Zimback, a Japanese-Dublin artist, draws whoops and applause.

The vibe is welcoming, encouraging and supportive. It feels like something the scene has been missing: a small, energy-filled space where rappers can test things, where the pressure is off but the performances are turned up. There’s no stage – the artists perform on the floor at eye-level with the gathered crowd.

A live saxophonist occasionally riffs over the top of whatever beats are selected. “This is the new wave,” Rebel Phoenix announces, surrounded by fellow artists Nealo, Jehnova and others cramming both the line-up and room. It makes sense that the Dublin rapper finds his tribe in these corners of the capital, among artists who are focused on craft and short on braggadocio. Rebel’s packed and dexterous lyricism has earned him a reputation as “a rapper’s rapper”.

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It’s almost a decade since he released his debut project, R.E.B.E.L., followed by the 16-track offering Documentations (A Story of Life and Death). Other releases include the EPs Never Die: Part One, Jackpot, How to be a Boss and Global Warming; the 16-track project D.M.T.N.T. (Dead Men Tell No Tales); and the singles Look at Me Now, Care for You, Herstory, All or Nothing, Kaleidoscope and Portraits.

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Now, he is gearing up for the release of his latest album, Museum, in September, having introduced crowds to some of the album’s tracks at shows as eclectic as Tara Kumar’s Soho House party on St Patrick’s Day in London, supporting Mango x Mathman at their final show earlier this year in Vicar Street and playing the late-night edition of Other Voices at the Hillgrove club in Dingle last winter.

The previous week, he arrived at Clement & Pekoe cafe on South William Street wearing a vintage blue French worker’s jacket (it’s Bastille Day). The idea for the new album, he said, came from a line on his Global Warming EP: “Though at times the grey skies overhead can starve the mind, I found my place seeing things through an artist’s eyes.”

“It encapsulates everything about me,” he said of that line and the new album, “I look at the most mundane sh*t from a different angle, from an artistic way. That line brought me to the title of Museum. I wanted to use every mood, every feeling, how we view things and bring that into a record and make it a museum from my perspective. I feel like every song became a room in a museum. It’s like when you go into the National Gallery or something – there’s baroque art, [there’s] Renaissance art. That idea is a big inspiration for the record.”

As the album begins to make its way out into the world, Rebel has found himself reflecting on the past. Recently, his mother found the first rap he ever wrote. “She still has it on a little piece of paper. It’s the most innocent sh*t ever. We were in the car going to Wexford and I’m rhyming about playing in the playground with my mate Mark, my cat Tom, real childish sh*t. I was probably nine or ten.” At the time, his most prized possession was “this little notebook that showed you how to structure songs. I was obsessed with writing from then on – writing my thoughts down, rhyming poetry, I suppose you could call it.”

Later, a neighbour was making beats and they started working together. “The name Rebel Phoenix came to me through my family history. There’s a lot of revolutionaries and freedom fighters in my DNA, in my blood. I was that person in school who didn’t want to fit in, maybe to my detriment. I found it hard to agree with people, including teachers. I found that I could put all of [those feelings] into music.”

The first time he shared his work with anyone was when he rapped for his brother, who now lives in New York. “He was always supportive of me. He asked me to rap something and I was shaking like a leaf, just me and him in me bedroom. I was reading it off the page. I couldn’t get the words out. I was just so nervous. It was a lovely feeling, just to get it out. He was congratulating me for it, bigging me up, telling me to keep going. I was 13 or 14 at the time.”

Over the years, he has taken a less strategic approach to releasing music than where he’s at now. “I put so much into my music and, oftentimes, it’s slept on. I’m an underground artist. But, this time around, I wanted to lift myself up with the artistic direction on the album; the imagery; the sonics; the words, obviously. Every little detail was more focused, way more intentional. Before it was like, ‘Make the song, put it out. Whatever happens, happens.’ But this was way more methodical and more directed.”

This shift, he thinks, is down to developing a different mindset, as well as the art he was exposing himself to. As the album was taking form, he found himself “listening to Brian Eno and Bad Brains”, essentially “any varied style of music that’s expressive”. Andrei Tarkovsky and David Lynch are two of his favourite filmmakers. A more abstract approach and leaving lyricism open to interpretation began to take hold: “I was exposing myself to stuff that would inspire me in a way that music, or even everyday life, couldn’t – just stuff that would make me think differently.”

He characterises one of the main emotional qualities of this album as “vulnerability”. What’s interesting is that this emotional thread can be seen in so much Irish rap at the moment, both undercutting and in contrast to a long tradition in assuming a hard-shell stance. This is, of course, a global trend in rap. For many artists, there appears to be a generational shedding of sorts going on of the macho tropes that previously existed. This is obviously a generalisation but it is notable.

In an Irish context, Rebel says social evolution plays a role: “I think people are less judgmental now about how other people want to live their lives. People feel a bit more relaxed around themselves [and] sharing how they feel because they’re not being judged for feeling a certain type of way. A few years ago, lads weren’t going around hugging each other and saying, ‘I love you, bro.’

“I’d say that to me mates every single day now, [with a] big kiss on the cheek. ‘I love you to death, bro.’ F**k it, like. We’re here to show love, so just do it. Years ago, people were on the back foot about that sh*t. Thank god, it’s changed. I think the world is in a better place because of it, as f**ked up as the world is. I try not to be blinded by all the negative stuff that’s going on because there’s so much good going on as well.”

The creative process that underpins his next creative phase has been both influenced and has, in turn, influenced broader personal change. “I’ve just grown,” he says, “I’ve matured. It was happening when I made the album but when the album was done, I stopped drinking. That was problematic for me for a while. I was going aimlessly but, now, I feel I have an aim. I can see things more clearly since I dropped some of the vices.” And as a rapper, he says, “Being open and free to let your emotions out in a song is the most important thing you can do.”

Rebel Phoenix plays Cold Summit at Pot Duggans in Ennistymon in Clare with Nealo, Jehnova, Luthorist, Zimback, and Sivv on August 12th. Tickets are €15 from Eventbrite. Museum is released in September.