Travy & Elzzz: "My message to all the industry is - embrace the culture, embrace the difference and embrace the people"

How must your body feel as it bounces around in front of 8,000 sweat-drenched souls from your hometown, each one revelling in music you made a couple of days prior with the biggest DJ of your generation? Don’t ask Travy and Elzzz.

“My body - I can’t really talk about that stuff because I might get locked up,” says Travy, only half-joking. “But what was going on in my head was just awe, man.”

It was October of last year when the rap duo joined Dundalk’s Reggie on stage at the RDS during Fred Again’s monumental ‘10 cities / 10 shows / 10 weeks’ USB002 tour. As part of the shtick, Mr. Again (or Mr. again.. if you prefer) recorded songs with artists during each stop. What was unique about Dublin was that he, Travy and Elzzz cut their track ‘Did It Again’ during a Twitch stream, freestyling around Elzzz’s hook on Travy’s song ‘reload’.

“Fred came in with a structure and a vision in his head,” says Elzzz. “Then he told us this is what we need to add to it, and we just executed and delivered. It’s just three sickos doing what sickos usually do, isn’t it?”

It makes sense it turned out that way. Bizarrely, they had spotted their names on a folder on Fred’s computer, while he was streaming with American rapper PlaqueBoyMax.

“I texted Fred two or three years before actually working with him, that I’m going to work with him one day,” Travy says. “And then, when he saw the message, he’s like, ‘Oh yeah, let’s definitely work.’ He loved the songs where me and Elzzz were going back to back and all that stuff. From that moment he was locked in.”

“He’d be hitting me up,” he continues. “We went to Big Smoke Festival and every single artist you can think of was there. And then Fred hits me up, and all these artists are surrounding us. Because Fred’s there, and everybody wants a piece of Fred. But he’s like, ‘Oh, one sec, I’m just chilling with Trav.’ And then these artists are now looking at me and Sam [Fallover, videographer], like, ‘Who the fuck are these kids?’”

This is said with a smile.

“We’ve met a few famous people across this journey, but I’ve never met anyone like Fred,” Elzzz adds. “He’s the most genuine, down-to-earth, eye-level guy. When he’s speaking to you, he’s really speaking to you and not just trying to get a conversation out of the way.”

Fred Again's RDS show.

EMBRACE THE DIFFERENCE

It’s the latest notch on their increasingly perforated belts. From Nigerian families and growing up in Ireland, Travy and Elzzz have spent the last few years in the cultural vanguard across fashion and music – both through their own Gliders brand, and the small matter of being the first local rap artists to land a No.1 on the Irish charts, with Doghouse in 2024.

Independently too: Travy recalls being out in the rain selling CDs, an image that underlines the lengths to which many rappers and drill artists in Ireland will go to for commercial success. Their views on how they’re seen by the mainstream are summed up in a line from ‘Did It Again’: “They said the aura threatening them.”

“It’s always gonna be like that,” Travy says. “It was like that back in the day, when grime was starting; it was like that back in the day in America, when rap was starting - the industry never actually looked at them until it was time to look at them. So, obviously, the short end of the stick of being rappers in Ireland – I’m not gonna play a race card because I’m not trying to really do all of that anyways – but… for some reason, with us, we’ve seen certain…”

“It’s just hard for them to digest,” Elzzz continues. “The way we carry ourselves. The things we do, how we are… it nearly makes them disregard trying to know the content of our characters as people. They just see what they see, and because of that there’s so many preconceived notions of how we should be, and how we should act, and what they think we are, which is so far removed from what we actually are. We’ve always been the type of people to build our own motion, create our own story. We don’t really care about a co-sign. But do you know what’s a good co-sign, though? Fred again..”

“Sometimes we look at artists that we know are more accomplished than us, getting way better opportunities,” Travy says. “It’s not even like they don’t deserve it, it’s just more so that sometimes we feel like at least we deserve more. We just turn it into motivation and go harder.

“I’ll give you an example: we were first rappers to get a No.1 album in Ireland, we made history. At the RTÉ Choice Music Awards that year, we didn’t even get a single nomination.”

“Travy doesn’t want to do it, but this is a magazine and this is the truth,” Elzzz says. “I’ll do it, I’ll play the race card. If I was white, I would have gotten it.”

The Choice crew might reject any suggestion of bias by pointing to the fact that The Rusangano Family won in 2016 and Denise Chaila in 2020. That doesn’t alter that fact that T & E felt slighted.

“The internet is the open world. You don’t need anyone’s validation to blow up,” Travy says. “If people connect to what you’re doing, you can build your own tribe. [Accolades] are just an add-on. My message to all the industry is: embrace the culture, embrace the difference and embrace the people that are actually there right now, before you’re trying to reach them when they’re already blown up.”

DISCUSSED IN THE SCRIPTURES

Fuelling Travy and Elzzz – who Hot Press featured in a brilliant show in The Workman’s Club back in 2023 – is a bucketload of confidence: in each other, in what they do, and in themselves as individuals.

“I’ve been a confident person since knee-high,” says Travy with a grin. “My parents instilled that in me. I never came into the world thinking I need validation from someone that works behind a desk. I understand who I am, and I understand what I need to get done, because at the end of the day, bro, it’s me in that coffin. Even Elzzz, he ain’t in the coffin with me either!

“There’s days where this music shit doesn’t feel like anything. But at the same time, I walk around feeling like I’m already him, because God has instilled something in me, in Elzzz. In you, Riccardo, bro, even you.”

The jury’s out on that one.

“Parenting comes into it,” says Elzzz. “There’s a part in the Bible that goes: ‘Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.’ Once you actually believe that, it definitely plays a factor. But us being confident doesn’t mean that sometimes we don’t slip up, take Ls, and shit doesn’t go left. The strong man falls seven times and gets up seven times.”

While faith has always been part of their lives, there has been no shortage of comment lately about young people gravitating towards religion.

“The world is fucked up,” Travy suggests. “I go onto my phone and I’ll see someone dying, bro. The world is hella crazy and it’s given a lot more people anxiety and stress. One thing I’ve seen across borders is that when people go into faith it’s a very calm space to be in.”

“Those questions that give you anxiety have already been discussed in the scriptures,” adds Elzzz. “Whether it’s the Quran or Hinduism or Christianity, it doesn’t matter. We’ve been here before.”

• 'DID IT AGAIN' is out now.