Ahmed, With Love.: "You don’t have to take yourself seriously to create a serious piece of music"

Amusement often reigns in the world of Ahmed, With Love. When we catch up with him a few days before he announces his mixtape Comma, Fullstop., there’s a sense of joyful mayhem swirling around. He’s really buzzing about the release, though acknowledges it’s been a long time coming.

“I’ve been super-finicky in terms of dropping a body of work of this size,” he says. “I didn’t really want to drop anything until I was mentally ready. Now, I feel like I’m at a point where I feel comfortable enough to attach my name to a big project.”

After years of establishing himself on the Dublin rap scene, Ahmed, With Love. has carved out a niche alongside the likes of Curtisy, TXPE EATER, Rory Sweeney, Chameleon and more. His image sits somewhere between the eccentric ironies of Napoleon Dynamite and the theatrics of lucha libre wrestling, with hints of Odd Future and MF Doom-style levity.

He reflects on the creative process that led to the distinctive sound of Comma, Fullstop.

“A few of the songs were made in my attic by myself with a beat that a friend had,” Ahmed recalls. “Then I made a few with Gav [Curtisy] and Rory Sweeney in Gav’s shed in Tallaght. Others were in impromptu studio sessions I had with friends in London and Dublin. The majority of the songs were spirit-of-the-moment type things, which is what I appreciate. Things always need to feel natural to me whenever I drop them. My best pieces of work are whenever they just happen genuinely and it’s a fun time.”

Friendship is at the core of Ahmed, With Love.’s artistry. As well as Curtisy and Rory Sweeney, Comma, Fullstop. also saw him enlist the likes of TXPE EATER, Chameleon (Matthew Harris) and Eduardo Pinheiro (Burglar). The rapper cites Eduardo as a huge influence on the mixtape’s rich, Brazilian-infused sound, ranging from bossa nova and samba to funk carioca and tropicália.

“Eduardo’s such a gem,” he says. “I’d known him a good bit – we actually used to do stuff together at Dublin Youth Theatre. Our brains kind of work hand-in-hand and we’re in sync a lot of the time. He’s one of the main reasons I got into Brazilian music. It was the first and only song we’ve made together – it means a lot to make it with someone who means a lot to me. I always enjoy things more when there’s a fun sliver of emotional connection. Eduardo’s super-talented and the music him and Willow are dropping is great.”

A highlight of Comma, Fullstop. is the cool-as-fuck ‘Help Wanted’, a stream of consciousness meditation on priority-shifting moments and selfhood. Its origin story keeps with the Ahmed, With Love. focus on friendship.

“'Help Wanted’ is one of those tell-tale examples of me, Gavin, Rory and TXPE EATER just hanging out to make some songs,” Ahmed says. “They already made the beat before I got there, so they played it on a loop and we went from there. I didn’t even know what to write about, but when the beat started playing, I figured I’d word-vomit how I was feeling and see what happens. It was a pretty natural explosion of how my head was working at the time, and how my head works sometimes when things aren’t necessarily the brightest or warmest.”

Ahmed, With Love.’s MO was born of the Covid-era longing for connection. When things reopened, the Dublin rap scene saw a huge resurgence of DIY music, with many artists rethinking their approach.

“It’s beautiful how, nowadays, everyone just wants an excuse to meet and work with other people, and bring the whole scene up together,” says Ahmed. “It puts a lot of stock and value in the entire process of making art as a collective. Artists have a more holistic approach, as opposed to wanting to get big. Like, I’d much rather be hanging out with people who are creative like me and have nothing come of it, rather than being successful. That’s why I did pharmacy in college and I didn’t go to BIMM, you know what I mean?

“I like doing music because I really want to, not because I have to. And you can be yourself. You don’t have to take yourself seriously to create a serious piece of music. I feel like some artists shave off the little idiosyncrasies that make them unique to fit in – it’s like shaving the corners off a square peg to fit in the round hole. You’re missing out on all the fun uniqueness of what makes you, you.”

• Comma, Fullstop. is out now.