KhakiKid: “I got invited to work in Abbey Road with a producer. I was like, ‘Oh, shit. This is kind of a big deal'"

Lately, everywhere I turn, I see KhakiKid – on The Late Late Show performing ‘Date Nite’ (I could spend this whole article, writing about ‘Date Nite’, a god damn beautiful Motown-worthy gem of a pop single); having the craic with Oliver Callan on RTÉ, grooving and supping porter on Fanning At Whelan’s; and that’s him going viral on every streaming platform.

“Sorry about that,” KhakiKid laughs, “that sounds like torment!”

Since the release of his debut single ‘Late’ in 2021, numerous column inches have been written about KhakiKid. They inform us that the man known to his Mama as Abdu Huss grew up in Walkinstown, began writing rap lyrics in his early teens, got a place at UCD to study financial mathematics, didn’t attend, pretended to his mother that he did – and simultaneously dove into his nascent artistic career. And oh yeah, he plays some mean basketball too.

That’s the CV. In person, he’s great company – self-effacing, funny, smart, and the dude loves music. And all types of music, too: in an audacious nerd-off, we swap song tips across Sudanese Funk, Gym Class Heroes, Mdou Moctar, Desert Blues, Tuareg music and more.

Additionally, Abdu Huss is massively ambitious, wanting to play even bigger rooms than his recent sold-out Olympia Theatre performance. When I compliment ‘Date Nite’ as a pop gem, he immediately states, “I need to make another one soon enough.”

Thing is, he already has. ‘Germ’ and ‘Boy Racer’, which appear along with ‘Date Nite’ on last year’s 2025 Moanbag EP, are a pair of sonic bangers and there’s another EP – Girl Bites Dog – on the horizon, and perhaps even more later this year.

Following 2022’s Sports & Tattoos, and Elevator Music and sand bebé in 2023, Moanbag is Abdu’s most recent EP that bolsters a steady stream of standalone singles, which he has regularly released since that debut in 2021 – all of which document a subtle sonic evolution.

“At the end of the day,” Abdu counters, “it’s all rap. You can do so much with it. Towards the end of last year, I found what I want to do sonically. But I will definitely still experiment, it’s taken doing so many different genres to find what I really like.”

Girl Bites Dog is set to feature – among other distinguished collaborators – superb Dublin creative collective Bricknasty, F3miii, Joe Butler and rock rapper JD Cliffe.

“There’s a lot of collaborators,” Abdu diplomatically replies. “I think some of them are going to be silent collaborators though, so I don’t know exactly what the final set-up is going to be.”

In November just past, KhakiKid played that sell-out show at the Olympia, which looked a mega night out.

“That was unbelievable,” Abdu chuckles. “I know it’s a cliché, but genuinely it was a fucking dream come true. When I first started making music, I printed a picture in black and white of the Olympia and sellotaped it to my wall, because I was like, ‘I want to play this gig’. Five years later, we sell it out, and it’s crazy. My mam was there, my family were there. Gigs in general are nice, but when you get a box that you can put mates in, it feels pretty good.”

Keeping pace with Abdu is fun. When I mention Moanbag bringing memories to these aged ears of Aaagh-era Republic Of Loose, although not in agreement, Abu informs me about Rejjie Snow sampling ROL. That segues into the necessity, back in the day, of Irish bands relocating to London – and that, in turn, leads Abdu to talk about Skid Row’s Brush Shiels, describing that geographical gulf in the 1970s.

Fortunately, that exodus is less necessary (in music industry terms, housing and cost of living is another chestnut entirely), particularly in hip-hop, where many artists self-produce, record and release records from their homes, in the process retaining control over their sound and identity.

“I do record in my bedroom,” Abdu says. “I got invited to work in Abbey Road with a producer. I was like, ‘Oh, shit. This is kind of a big deal.’ I saw all these tours that kept on walking across the road, and the studio we were in was at the front of the building, so people kept on taking pictures of us in the studio. We sit down, make an instrumental, and it sounds really good. Then we get to writing the lyrics and the hook and I’m really excited about it.

“When it goes time to record it, I record it with the producer. But when I listen back, I’m like, ‘This is possibly one of the worst things I’ve ever written. This sounds like fucking horseshit’. So, I said, ‘Do you know what man, I’ll work on this at home.’ I go home, record the vocals in my bedroom with brand new ideas, and now it’s one of my favourite songs I’ve ever made.

“People have so much more autonomy now,” he continues. “I was chatting with Fatboy from Bricknasty. We were talking about, if he or I were born 10 years earlier, we might not have had a chance with this music stuff. Because it was crazy expensive to make music not too long ago.”

KhakiKid

Abdu outlines other reasons that his creativity is enhanced when working alone – less time pressure, less distraction, no people to entertain or interact with. The latter stems from his ADHD, which he is refreshingly open about. Whatever the reason, it’s working out isn’t it? KhakiKid is at the apex in what is an Elysian time for Irish music. I wonder about the sense of community in the scene.

“I feel like Dublin,” Abdu considers, “is too small to just have the hip-hop scene. I know NewDad, I know Efé. I feel like because the country’s so small, it’s just a music scene. Which is great, because then you get a lot more influence from different genres, and a few more perspectives than you would if we were just in a rap scene.”

The brief for this piece is Hot For 2026, so by default Abdu, you’re Hot for 2026!

“Unreal man,” he laughs, “it means a lot brother.”

Plans for 2026 include hints of a longer body of work, and a huge tour, one that hopefully includes Australia and a bunch of festivals. I wonder what a KhakiKid audience looks like?

“It’s all over the gaff right now,” Abdu explains. “It’s very confusing, to be honest. Genuinely, it’s been all age ranges, lads, girls, people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and then teenagers. It’s been really interesting playing these shows. Because when I started making music, it was just all lads. Now it’s a mixed bag of people, which is kind of sick.”

How proud was your Mam seeing you on that Olympia stage?

“Ah man,” he replies, “she was chuffed. I asked them to put the spotlight on her, she was doing too much man. She was like posing and shit. I was like, ‘Take the light off of that woman!’”

Photos of that night show KhakiKid standing in and on the crowd. It’s a boss image of an artist at the peak of his powers, one of an ever-growing posse of phenomenal Irish rappers – why are we so damn good right now?

“Growing up,” he recalls, “I remember watching rap videos, or rap battles. I would do some rap battles with people and shit like that on YouTube. But I don’t know what it is, why there are so many. There was the Original Rude Boys, I don’t know if they were considered rappers.

“But I remember seeing them when I was a kid and being like, ‘Oh, holy shit, there’s someone doing something cool.’ It must be just being able to do it – like the fact that anyone can rap, even if they mightn’t be good. Like, Fatboy from Bricknasty makes songs on his phone, so maybe it’s an access thing.”

That and perhaps the disappearance of accent anxiety?

FAVOURITE RAPPERS

“I think Fontaines have done that for people,” Abdu states. “And Curtisy is doing that for rappers here, which is really sick. Because even me, only five years ago, on that ‘Late Song’, I didn’t sound like myself, you know what I mean? It took a little while to realise what was cool about myself, or what was it I liked about my favourite rappers.

“Obviously, they were very talented rappers, but there are loads of talented rappers out there. It was the fact they were being themselves. I was like, ‘Oh, I like these rappers. I want to be exactly like them, because they’re good’. So, I was like, ‘Let me try and sound like Mac Miller, let me try and sound like Outkast.’ But friends like Curtisy rapping in his own accent, or me taking time to find myself, I now realise,

‘Oh, what’s most valuable about us is our personalities and who we are.’”

And with the looming creative scythe of AI, that’s the case more so than ever?

“I know I’m a good rapper,” Abdu opines. “But there’s only so much rapping you can do – you have to have something else.”

Which, fortunately KhakiKid possesses in spades – obviously through his songwriting and performance, but also his innovative and imaginative videos. The clip for his most recent single, ‘Moving On’, is a hoot. Those videos, coupled with social media snippets of his mates, convey a compelling gang mentality, one where they enjoy life and have fun.

“Yeah”, Abdu agrees, “that’s just me being a bit of an eejit and trying to have as much fun as I can with it. Again, Fatboy from Bricknasty is a big influence on me. He had a sit down with me, maybe a year-and-a-half ago, and he was like, ‘Man, you just need to start being yourself again and make shit you’re proud of.’

“Because for a while there, I was trying to make videos that do well, instead of just making videos that I enjoyed. So I took his advice and that’s what’s brought me back to making videos again. Even if they’re not the most profitable thing to do, I love doing them. That’s like my second favourite thing to do, so there’ll be more of them on the way.”