Snowing up in public: Hot Press speaks to Rejjie Snow

The morning of February 20 in New York City. Alexander Anyaegbunam rolls out of bed to do his fourth day of press interviews (or is it the fifth? He’s lost count). Written and recorded in London, LA and Paris, his 20-track debut album was released a few days earlier, and has already become an early contender for album of the year. The eyes of the music world have become suddenly fixed on a 24-year-old rapper from Drumcondra. People want to know how an MC from Ireland, of all places, found himself as one of the most formidable new artists in the genre. They’re asking him about his upbringing, analysing his unique style, poring over what his tattoos might mean (it’s been a long time since this much attention has been paid to Padre Pio – tattooed on the inside of Rejjie’s right forearm).

But for those of us from Ireland, Rejjie’s talents have been known for a long time.

Born to a Nigerian father and Irish-Jamaican mother, Alex grew up in an Ireland that still wasn’t used to diversity – least of all in an Irish music scene where rock and folk had cultural hegemony, and “a (w)rap” was something you asked for at your local Centra. Having been given a scholarship to play football in Florida when he was 17, Rejjie Snow’s initial career path didn’t appear to be a musical one.

But a combination of wanting to break away from the restrictive nature of his schooling, and a love of the nascent hip-hop culture he’d been introduced to as a graffiti artist in Dublin – not to mention the memory of being pulled onstage by none other than Pharrell Williams at the Olympia when he was just 12 – led the young Alex to embrace the idea of being a rapper.

He was widely championed when he released ‘Dia Dhuit’ in 2011 under the guise of ‘Lecs Luther’. It was an appropriately titled opening salvo, but it wasn’t until he stepped away from the Dublin scene and moved to London that Alex – now under the moniker of ‘Rejjie Snow’ – began to stake his claim on the international hip-hop scene.

His 2013 EP Rejovich briefly charted ahead of new releases from heavyweights like Kanye West and J. Cole on the iTunes Chart, while singles like ‘Lost In Empathy’ and ‘Blackkst Skin’ demonstrated that he was technically proficient, with a serious flair for music videos. A few years and few more singles later, his 2017’s 13-track mixtape The Moon & You was released – giving us a prototype of what a Rejjie Snow album might sound like.

In amongst all this, he was being mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Kendrick Lamar, MF Doom, Joey Bada$$ and Kaytranada, and even fitted in a support slot for Madonna on her 2015 European tour. Of late, meanwhile, Dear Annie has been receiving rave reviews across the board - even Elton John has been playlisting Rejjie on his Beats 1 show.

Taking all that into account, it’s truly hard to believe that the Dublin rapper is still only on his first album.

“I guess I got scared a lot of the time,” reflects Snow of his early days, down the line from NYC. “I didn’t know how to deal with the pressure – the demand to release something and promote it and have it be considered me. I felt like that might box me in, so I needed time to chill out and realise what I love about music – to see if that’s what I wanted to do with my life.”

It wasn’t that Dear Annie was a monumental undertaking, it’s more that Rejjie Snow has always been a considered person when it comes to his music. His debut album was delayed several times while he worked on other projects. 2017’s The Moon And You mixtape was a nice interlude for fans, but it also allowed him to look more objectively on what direction he wanted to take.

“I didn’t really want to get fame and have attention,” he admits. “I’m a super low-key guy and that kind of scared me a little bit. But at the same time, I always want to make music, so I had to keep that at the forefront of making decisions. I let that dictate the pace at which I wanted to further my career.”

That he’s this earnest about himself, and his subject matter, is hardly surprising. Dear Annie, far from being an album of wilful obscurity or bluster, is a vividly drawn snapshot of love and loss, deep in colour and, more importantly, raw honesty.

“I had the whole idea about a year ago,” explains Rejjie. “The hard thing for me was getting into the headspace to make a song. Because I guess when I’m really happy I don’t like making music, or I don’t make good music. So I end up going into the studio feeling down.

“I sort of had to find that balance. When it happened though, it was all very organic. Two or three months and then the album was made.”

The headspace that Rejjie ultimately found himself in meant that he substituted the anger of earlier songs like ‘Crooked Cops’ for tracks that were more contemplative, songs that became ‘love letters’ to the people around him.

“That’s the place I was writing it from,” he stresses. “It was just me confessing like, all these things to all these people. It was to me, to friends, to loved ones, to experiences, all that tied up in one piece. Different stories from the same world.”

MEMORABLE IMAGERY
The stories in question are vividly told by a man whose gift for memorable imagery is remarkable. As well as having studied film and design at university, Rejjie tells me that he’s always used painting to work through issues (he hints at this euphemistically in ‘The Ends’ – “When I’m sketching over campus, make the messiest of sheets”), and that it helps him cope with the loneliness of always being on the road.

“I do get lonely, for sure,” he says. “I love seeing new cities and meeting the fans but I’m still not used to it. I hate flying and being away from my girl. She lives in London and we sort of do our thing when we’re apart.”

The rapper draws attention to this sense of isolation in ‘Room 27’, where he muses what it would be like to burn out – suicidal and lonely – and join the infamous ’27 club’, “jump to the ledge… jump into the sky”.

While travelling often sees Rejjie paired up with just his DJ, for Dear Annie, the rapper found himself partnering with To Pimp A Butterfly producer Rahki, Lewis OfMan, Cam O’bi (Chance The Rapper, Vic Mensa) and Kaytranada. For good measure, the record features the likes of UK rappers Ebenezer and long-term collaborator Jesse James Solomon, Nordic pop singer Anna Of The North, and Californian singer/poet Dana Williams.

“These were all people I wanted to work with before I even had the album idea,” says Rejjie, “because I knew the sound that I wanted to go to with the lyrics. I knew who I wanted to work with, and it all came out really sick. But I mean, it also took me a while to even get into a good chemistry with most of the producers I’ve worked with. With Rahki, it took me a year to really get that chemistry. With Louis OfMan it took about a month – I guess I got lucky with that. And I appreciate that they’ve got the time for me and the ideas have always been free-flowing between us. Ideas are something I’ve never had a problem with, I’m always writing them down on my phone and keeping notes. The process comes to me super simply, but it takes all these other people to make it the super intricate thing it ends up being.”

With hip-hop now at the centre of the culture, there’s a lot of formulaic rap to wade through before you get to gems like Dear Annie. What does Rejjie make of the genre’s current state?

“I’d agree that a lot of rap out there can just be trash,” he says. “I just wanted to be myself with this record. I wanted to be weird and do freaky shit, and tap into my brain to see if I could tap into other people’s brains, you know? Because I think the way a lot of music consumed now isn’t made for a listening experience – everything’s too straight to the point. I wanted to go against that.”
That “freaky shit” might explain Snow’s fascination with artists like MF Doom, who he previously praised for his unstructured, transcendental style, compared to the more overtly socio-political leanings of figures like Tupac or Biggie. And much like MF Doom, Rejjie likes to enter into his songs wearing a (metaphorical) mask.

“When I’m recording I get into characters,” he laughs. “I’m acting, that kind of thing. It made it easier to get into the feeling of a song, to achieve the cinematic feel I was going for. When I make music I always see the visual side of things first. I see all the images in my head, then try to put lyrics to it and fit a flow around it.

“A lot of the record is stories about friends of mine, and a lot of them are personal stories and struggles. And yeah, there were a lot of times when I was super low, just because I live in my head and go to weird places. Not that I’d ever act on that type of thing. Again, it’s just imagery. It’s almost I can see the music video playing in my head – me jumping out the window and flying on ‘Room 27’. I just have the visual side down, it’s a short film of mixed emotions.”

This plays out in various ways in the album - ‘23’ paints a picture of love and nostalgia; ‘Greatness’ takes Rejjie back to his upbringing in Dublin; and ‘Desole’ sounds like it was plucked from French cinema. Not given to focusing on what most other rappers do, Snow’s heart-on-sleeve lyrics eschew the kind of toxic masculinity that a lot of rap still finds itself swamped in. On top of this, if hip-hop artists can sometimes be accused of obsessing over territory – namechecking their home cities, streets, corners etc – Rejjie’s terrain is internal; his focus is on coming to terms with himself. But does he still feel it’s important to connect with his Irish identity in his music?

“I don’t know if I think about it as such,” admits Rejjie. “A lot of the stories from this album were from my years of living in Ireland. I have a lot of love for artists from Dublin who I know, and I’d love to work with more artists from here in the future. But with writing the record and thinking about selling it, I wasn’t thinking about any of that stuff. It’s not where my head is, because I know where I’m from, I know who I am, what my Irish identity is, and you can see that from my music.”

ODD FUTURE?
Flashforward to March 12 – Rejjie Snow’s homecoming gig at the Olympia Theatre. The fact that this was where Pharrell spat bars on ‘Rockstar’ with a 12-year-old Snow isn’t lost on your correspondent, and whether Snow is embracing that memory or not as he performs, he seems to be revelling in the moment. With Dear Annie enjoying universal acclaim, Rejjie fires off a two-hour set of tracks new and old, with all the ease and confidence of a veteran. In the midst of it all, he manages to pay tribute to his positively beaming 89-year-old grandmother. who’s in the audience, and also brings out Ringsend rap duo Versatile for a wonderful cameo. It’s clear that even if Snow has left Dublin, the city hasn’t left him.

It’s only March, but unless Kendrick Lamar releases another studio album this year (not impossible at his current rate of output), or Tupac makes a late entry from beyond the grave, Dear Annie is likely to go down as the best rap album you’ll hear anywhere in 2018. And if the success of the current generations of Irish hip-hop artists (Paul Alwright, Rusangano Family, Hare Squead) and the rap-heavy line-up for Longitude are anything to go by, the Drumcondra lad is likely to get all the respect he deserves in his home country.

What’s in store for the future then?

“I’ve got an idea for the next album,” he says. “I’m not in any rush to do it, but I think it’ll be one of the best things I’ve done yet. I need to get into the headspace again, that’s what I’ve been saying it’s all about – just finding the headspace. I’ve also got a few features coming out this year that I’m really excited about. I want to keep working with as many different people as I can. Then I want to put out a short film. I mean, I studied film and I want to go back to that. I love shooting my music videos and I’m looking forward to that, but I also have this idea for a horror movie set in Dublin with a mixed cast. But it needs to be fleshed out a bit first.”

At this, I’m reluctantly forced to end my interview with Rejjie after reaching the cut-off point. By the time he’s moved onto the next call, I’ve already thought of about 10 more questions I should’ve asked him. There’s the religious undertones of his music that I didn’t address; the sampling of Republic Of Loose’s famed ‘The Steady Song’ for his own ‘Charlie Brown’; the people he wants to work with in the future. All unanswered for now.

Still, as I go digging into his past interviews and his impressive backlog of music, I write down all the extra questions I can think of for posterity. With the direction that Snow’s career is taking, it won’t be long until the press are knocking down his door again for an update on the latest EP, mixtape, music video or album.

We haven’t even scratched the surface with Rejjie Snow.

Dear Annie is out now, via 300 Entertainment.