Hard-hitting rhymes, on the DALY
Adam Lawler interviews upcoming Dublin hip-hop artist DALY and finds a sensitive grafter ready for his moment.
Irish hip-hop is having a well-deserved moment, and it is no longer enough to talk about it like it is a unified front. There are the slick sonic stylists, there are the smirking experimental mavericks, there are the ones you think are American. Then there are the ones who came up fighting. The ones who release music like they absolutely have to. Like they’re rapping to reckon with something larger than themselves. This is where DALY comes in.
A fiery wordsmith who’s been working on his craft for years, he is ready to be let loose. If you’ve seen him, you already understand the hype. The video of his ‘Academy Lane’ freestyle garnered some early attention for good reason; it is a blisteringly technical piece of work.
“That one was a bit of a statement,” DALY said. His voice comes across as a warmly weathered rasp. “I haven’t released anything yet, it is kind of been just developing the craft and practice practice practice for the last two years. ‘Academy Lane’ was me kind of saying ‘this is what I can do. This is the type of shit I can write. This is the speed, the confidence I have. See what’s to come’.”
Seeing DALY live is essential to the experience. His is the type of hyper-visceral style that evokes visibly throbbing veins and spittle flying, the precision-tooling of his style and words making the whole thing seem effortlessly raw and electric. His single launch for his debut single ‘Everything Will Be Ok’ was a typically raucous affair, but DALY says leading up to it was a mix of excitement and tiredness as he’d been planning it since January 2019.
Looking back on the tumultuous period before the gig in July 2019 seems like it is a stressful exercise in itself, as DALY recounts problems with his artist profile on Spotify, delaying the single’s release. He also had problems with Facebook and Instagram putting a stopper on promoting the song due to its “promotion” of drugs and profanity.
“Which is ridiculous” he says, “but you gotta take the hand you’re dealt”. This seems to be a common theme in the life and art of DALY. Often his music is inspired by the brutality of hardship, translating that brutality into something just as hard-hitting and that is both fiery and emotionally gutting, often in a single line. Case in point is debut single ‘Everything Will Be Ok’. Such a broad statement as the title could have been dismissed as a generic platitude if he didn’t bring it home with such earned gusto. The song is about “the trials and tribulations that young people in Dublin face when things just don’t go their way”, DALY said. “I know a lot of people who I used to go to school with and grew up with, they couldn’t get a job and instead of grinding on or whatever they ended up just selling or getting into drugs or getting into this and that.”
The Dublin Northside experience, DALY is from Finglas, both inhabits and informs his song writing and process in such a way that it is inseparable from his music.
“Just get the bleedin’ paper out, get the phone out, get it down. Get it out’”
“I could be just walking down O’Connell Street and I’ll see something, or I’ll hear somebody say something, and from that there’s a line, and from that line there’s a verse,” he says of the initial idea that eventually becomes a song. “With me, I get this one burst of inspiration and the whole song will be done that day, and if I make any edits it’ll be that day. After that I kind of leave it as it is and go with it.”
It is clear from his measured, modest way of speaking, like he is only realising his thoughts as he says them aloud, that he is the type to be his own worst critic. This type of internal pressure means that he likes to get songs done, and done quickly, because a good idea can sour like milk when left out in the elements of a self-critical mind.
“You keep saying ‘I don’t know how I feel about this’ and then it turns to ‘I don’t think I like it. No, I don’t like it. No, I hate it, I have to get rid of it’. With me, I kind of just get it out and let the song sit. Let the audience decide.”
Inspiration, like the rare opportunity, needs to be seized. “They’re the thoughts you might only have once. Moods change so quick. Inspiration, motivation drops so quickly in people. Once we have that feeling of passion, where the pen is literally hitting the paper, when you’re at the bus stop and you just take out the phone and start typing non-stop. If you say to yourself: ‘Eh, I’ll do it when I get home’, by the time you get home it’s not what it originally was.” His advice: “Just get the bleedin’ paper out, get the phone out, get it down. Get it out.”
Like many young Irish people, social awareness lurks under the covers of DALY’s songs like a sludgy blackness. It is hard not to have your ears pricked to the injustices of this country when they’re so well-magnified in the microcosm of Dublin. All you have to do, according to DALY, is look around.
“I’ve spent the last five years just on the streets of the city centre”, DALY said. “You meet so many people through busking. I have so many friends that are homeless at the minute. Seeing what they go through and hearing some of the stories.”
DALY’s music is about his experience and he says, there’s plenty of material in that. “I’m worried about what I see and what I feel. I’m not into the whole kind of ‘bottles and bitches’ kind of vibe.” This hyper-masculine stoicism is something DALY is passionate about deconstructing in one way or another.
“I think sometimes we need to be vulnerable and open and honest. My music and the way I write is kinda me being like ‘look, it’s okay to do this’. If I can do this, and I put sponsored posts up about it, trying to get it to as many people as possible, then you can talk to at least one person.”
DALY is sensitive, hard, observant, intuitive, angry, sad, bruising and bruised all at once, but if anything will help him succeed it is this; a sense of child-like wonder, always looking up to what can be. Every win is a step up, every success is euphoric, and he thrives off these moments like no other.
In the words of the man himself, “I will not leave people bored and I will not stop working”.
You can’t help but be excited for him. DALY’s music is available on all streaming services. You can keep up to date on his upcoming gigs on his Facebook.
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