Aaron Connery of Outstraight Records: "I don't think there's ever been a better time to be a hip hop artist in Ireland"

“The thing about us,” says Aaron Connery, the label head of Dublin’s Outstraight Records, “is that we’re honest.” True to their name, the homegrown hip-hop collective of ten have never ceased to speak their mind, allowing the driving force behind their “no bullshit” sound to be life beyond music.

“We all come from normal, working-class backgrounds,” Connery adds from his London hotel room. “We all put a lot of work in and take the music very seriously – but also, it isn’t our whole identity.”

Originally an arts cooperative highlighting spoken word poetry, book publishing, panel discussions, theatre performances and more, the reconfigured label is quickly shaping up to be one of Dublin’s brightest hip-hop collectives. With a wealth of creative experience across a multitude of disciplines, Outstraight’s unique evolution from publishing house and events group to record label has instilled in the rap collective a sense of imaginative diversity.

Founded by Lewis Kenny in 2015, Outstraight has been a key part of the Dublin creative scene for almost a decade, promoting a wide range of artists, poets, writers and musicians. By 2020, the eclectic collective had found its niche within the music industry – as Aaron Connery took the reins, marking the group as a distinctly musical entity.

“Lewis has stopped doing as much spoken word stuff since 2018 or 2019,” Connery explains. “The person that he started the collective with, Paul Curran, who was an artist himself and would have been quite well known in Dublin, passed away. So I think Lewis fell out of love with doing the art stuff.

"But, obviously, me then wanting to start a record label and being best friends with Lewis, I asked him if I could use the name Outstraight to kind of keep things going and to keep the brand alive and just the whole energy of it. Lewis was very much on board and he is still involved in the record label, but it would be primarily myself.”

Aaron Connery & Lewis Kenny (credit: Outstraight Records)

While the collective has always been invested in the cultural and social significance of hip-hop – pairing live events with graffiti jams or DJ afterparties – the musical focus of Outstraight wasn't brought to the forefront until after Connery’s involvement in 2020.

“The label formed very naturally,” says Connery. “After Covid, when lockdown was coming towards an end, I’d gotten to know a lot of the venues around Dublin and Ireland. They were encouraging me to start doing shows – and then it just kind of snowballed into all the different stuff we now work with.

“Even last year, we did 12 different shows around Ireland," he continues. "We were mainly based in Dublin, but we did a couple of shows in Belfast, and we performed at the All Together Now festival as well. Ultimately, I booked 52 acts last year alone.”

In February, the collective released their debut EP, entitled Being Outstraight – a collaborative project primarily written, recorded, mixed and produced in-house. With six of the album’s seven tracks handled entirely by Outstraight members, the new record is a portrait of community and camaraderie.

“What I really like about the project is the fact that it’s quite representative of all the different people involved in the label,” Connery says. “We all know each other very well obviously, but they do come from slightly different backgrounds and have different musical influences and stuff too.”

The result is a cohesive yet diverse range of tracks, opened by the introspective lyricism of Graham with ‘Drive Around,’ the album’s electrifying and dynamic lead single, produced by HIKII.

“Graham is probably, in my opinion, one of the best writers in Ireland,” Connery says, “and I know a couple of other artists who have said that about him as well.”

 

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After a string of '90s-informed hip-hop anthems, the project closes out with the cypher track ‘Ruckus,’ featuring eight of Outstraight’s ten members, including MCs Graham, Beano, Donkobz, Panda Drey and Conkan, vocalist GG Carma, poet/founder Lewis Kenny and producer 404NOTFOUND. A glorious blend of lush soundscapes and intoxicating beats, ‘Ruckus’ offers the perfect ending to a truly collaborative work of art, maintaining the collective’s unique swagger and distinctly Irish edge from its spoken word intro to closing synths.

“That was probably the longest track to put together in terms of the amount of work that it took,” Connery said, making a reference to the song’s upcoming music video by Josh Mulholland, out March 8. “It’s a really, really cool video. It’s not like any of the standard stuff – like walking around on the streets or just showing off the local area. This is quite a different take on how to do a cypher track.”

After a year of focusing on performances and live events, 2024 will serve as a period of creation for the collective, with a solo project from nearly every member Outstraight set to be released by the end of spring. The label will also be hosting a St. Patrick’s Day celebration at The Back Page in Dublin, lighting up each room of the venue with live bands, hip hop artists and DJs.

“I don’t think there’s ever been a better time to be a hip-hop artist in Ireland,” Connery says. “It’s very well received, and it’s very well regarded, in terms of the wider music industry and the music community in Dublin, and in Ireland by extension as well. People have a very good understanding of what hip-hop is, and that's because of a lot of groundwork being done by lots of different people in hip-hop in Ireland.

"So, at the end of the day, we really appreciate Dublin, and we really appreciate the Irish music community.”

Listen to Being Outstraight below: