Home Truths: Kojaque Speaks Truth To Power On His Debut Album
"You've got to take your own meaning from it..."
Dublin is at war. Not with a hateful enemy or an evil-minded malefactor but with its most loyal servants, its own people. Over the past number of weeks, as the world has slowly begun to re-open once more, Dublin City Council and An Garda Siochana threatened businesses and civilians with barricades and batons, for the sole reason of trying to enjoy the sun in their local surroundings. In April, Ireland’s Taoiseach Micheál Martin decreed the importance of preparing for an *‘outdoor summer’*. By May, people were being harassed for daring to step foot outside their door.
What a time it is for Dublin artist *Kojaque* to release his most complete body of work to date, and also his most Dublin-centric in his debut album ‘Town’s Dead’. It comes three years after the release of his conceptual project *‘Deli Daydreams’*, which was so acclaimed and exalted that the Choice Music Prize, the body that awards Ireland’s album of the year, had to alter its rules to guarantee its inclusion; and it lands seven year since he began producing and releasing beats on SoundCloud, the album is as rooted in home and personal experience one could ever wish for. It transports the listener through the mind and experiences of the creator and takes them on a journey of the hurt and pain it took to make Kojaque and his independent record label Softboy to international acclaim.
- - -
- - -
Six years in the making, ‘Town’s Dead’ is, in its purest form, a symbol of Ireland’s ever-changing relationship with its most creative minds. Once a country acclaimed for its poets and writers, it now *thrusts its most creative spirits to the brink of bankruptcy*, with a lack of grants, unaffordable housing and an inefficient amount of creative spaces. At every turn, artists in the capital are being reminded of a system built against them, in a country more obsessed with multinationals and becoming a tech tax haven than protecting its own people, past and present.
Across its 16 tracks and interludes, Kojaque touches on everything from the harsh realities of sex, violence, depression, uncertainty and a sense of loss and purgatory often felt by the new lost generation, a generation deprived of many of the milestones expect of days gone by. With tracks such as ‘Sex and Drugs’, ‘Wickid Tongues’ and ‘No Hands’ painting a vivid picture of life on the edge in the inner-city, the diversity of mindset, instrumentation and inspiration set it apart as an album for the ages. It captures a time we all hope soon shall pass, but fear may never truly die. In Ireland, a country with such a rich and textured history of anti-landlord sentiment going back as far as the 1800’s, it's perverse to feel their clenched fists around the necks of the young once more.
“It can be a very frustrating and disappointing place to live,” Kojaque admits of Dublin, the place he’s called home for as long as he can remember. “Often I felt like Dublin is a penance, something that has come upon us through some sort of sin, because I just see so many people in the same boat and there doesn’t seem to be any solution”. To this end, one of the key emotions in ‘Town’s Dead’ is anger, and Kojaque is passionate about the emotion’s importance when it comes to change.
“There’s no agency in apathy,” Kojaque explains passionately, “If you don’t care, it’s very difficult to motivate you to do anything, whereas if you’re angry, it’s quite an engaging emotion”.
“It’s a disruptive emotion” he notes, “but if you understand it and can articulate your anger in a certain way you can use it in a very constructive way”.
“That’s what I love about music,” he continues, “I can sit down and give out and complain until the cows come home, but if I put a nice beat behind it doesn’t matter, nobody cares”.
- - -
- - -
The strength of musical and artistic talent, Kojaque believes, is the saving grace of Dublin’s spirit, in particular the hard work and passion of the capital’s creative community. “There are so many people doing amazing shit that it’s almost in spite of all the obstacles you are presented with when you live here” he adds, “to a lot of people art is the only thing they truly have. Creativity is the only outlet people have to feel any semblance or agency over their own lives. You can at least have control over your expression”.
Despite its current pertinence and relativity, the majority of ‘Town’s Dead’s’ was written over three years ago.“The concept for the record, and I don’t know if I’d call it a concept record but it definitely has a narrative, came as early as 2015” Kojaque recalls of the album’s creative process, “it was then I had the idea and the timescale I thought of when I thought it was going to happen in its little world. Some of the songs are as early as then, ‘Black Sheep’ and ‘Jinty Boys’ and ‘No Hands’ even down to ‘Curtains’, a lot of them are early tracks”.
Despite some of the tracks being written years earlier, the decision to begin working on ‘the album’ started in January of 2019 and continued until the final touches were put in place and it was submitted in October of 2020. “Seeing all this shit come together and come out, considering how long I’ve had it all in my head has been amazing” Kojaque smiles of the album’s release, “just seeing it physically and being able to say ‘that’s exactly how I imagined it’ is amazing”.
For Kojaque, the idea of becoming a full-time musician and artist was nigh-on inconceivable. Now, with his debut album on the shelves and having toured with some of the biggest artists in the world in Lana Del Ray and slowthai, it's become more of a reality. However, for him it’s not about being the outlier; it’s about being the beginning of a trend. “I don’t want to be the exception to the rule” he notes, “I want people to feel empowered and capable to do it on their own”.
So determined was he to take his art to the next level, Kojaque decided in late 2019 to move across the Irish sea to London, and pursue his craft alongside some of the best in his field. Despite his best efforts, the move coincided with one of the difficult periods in Kojaque’s life, as he struggled to find accommodation in the city and was spending weeknights between sold-out shows sleeping on friends' couches, constantly feeling like somewhat of a burden on those he loved the most.
“That whole experience was a really dark time in my life” Kojaque admits looking back, “In so many ways I had a lot of success. I was sleeping on couches but I was going on tour every weekend, which in turn, I think, played into why I couldn’t find somewhere to live. It can feel quite alienating going on tour and going to these different cities and it can be quite isolating, especially when I was then going back to London and sleeping on couches again”.
- - -
- - -
Within a few months, Kojaque returned home to Dublin, impassioned and determined to put his all into his debut. He set up his microphone in his wardrobe, as he had with 'Deli Daydreams', and got to work.
“I started recording and got really serious with it” he adds, “oftentimes when you have this idea that becomes so overwhelming and bit, it’s easier just to think about rather than to actually sit down and do it”.
“That was one good thing about the pandemic, I didn’t have to tour,” he explains, “I had the album written, I was just always making excuses of when I should work on it, that I didn’t have time or whatever, but when the pandemic hit it was the perfect time to get deep into it. The world was on pause and the album became a safe haven for me. I just sat in my room and recorded and I didn’t care what was going on around me”. Kojaque is quick to note, however, that ‘Town’s Dead’ is far from a ‘COVID album’; if anything it’s an escape from that.
Now that the album is out in the world, what would he like listeners to take from it when they listen back?
Kojaque pauses, the first time he’s done so throughout our half-hour conversation, and takes a moment to consider the potential impact of his work. “I feel like the album is one you have to listen to a couple of times” he explains. “There are stories written into it and little details that only come on with repeated listens because it’s all made of little details”.
“I sometimes think that I’ve written this album like a book, where I kinda freehanded the storyline the first time through in order for the tracklisting to make sense, but I’ve scattered details and references across it that may take some time to find”.
At the end of the day however, life is about experiences and music is the greatest descriptor of life there ever was. “Music is there for you to experience,” Kojaque notes. “You’ve got to take your own meaning from it”.
- - -
- - -
'Home Truths' is out now.
Words: *Cailean Coffey*
- - -