Curtisy joins the call from his girlfriend’s backyard, spliff lit and a pair of what look like pyjamas dangling on a clothing line above his head. He apologises for the large crack in the phone camera which obscures his face, comically ducking down in an attempt to fit his head in what remains of the frame. Later, when I attempt to praise his music, he exclaims: “I don’t have a musical bone in me body!” It’s a striking relatability that, for a moment, makes me forget that Curtisy is one of the best rappers to ever come out of Ireland. But, then again, genius is often accompanied by a bit of character.

You see, through laid-back rap flows and witty one-liners (“I just want a piece of the three-point-one-four”) Curtisy treads a careful line between effortless and profound, and it’s created a bit of a buzz about him in recent years. Welsh rapper Luke RV recently described him to me as “Ireland’s response to Earl Sweatshirt” while, early last year, fellow rising Irish star KhakiKid called Curtisy “every Irish rapper’s favourite rapper” – and his stock has only risen since then. 

Curtisy may joke about his lack of musical bones but his new mixtape Beauty in the Beast, releasing tomorrow, is much more than just an underground rap project. It arrives at a key maturation point in his artistry, incorporating vocal melodies, unorthodox song structures, and cinematic storytelling about Ireland’s criminal underbelly. “Obviously I have all the rap schemes and whatever, but I don’t really want to write like a rapper,” Curtisy explains of this new turn in his career. “I want to learn from all the greats where, when you leave a song, you know exactly what they’re talking about. I’m only just understanding what a pre-chorus and bars are.”

Still, it’s precisely this everyman’s approach to music that makes his presence so special. He hails from the working-class Tallaght suburb of Dublin, currently living on an estate where, just weeks before we spoke, someone had set off a pipe bomb for unknown reasons. Curtisy tells me that men where he’s from usually don’t express themselves with words, so, growing up, it was rap that gave him the means to ‘understand all the shit’ that was going on in his head.

With lines like “Now I’m a breakout act, getting texts on occasion from a place down bad,” working through these experiences form the focus of the new project. It’s all about finding good in the bad, the Beauty in the Beast, and it’s delivered with the relatability of a true poet of the people.

Below, rapper’s rapper Curitsy speaks on his lack of musical bones, the importance of working class representation in music, and why he thinks Fontaines D.C. and Kneecap have opened the floodgates for Irish talent.

Hey Curtisy! Lots has been said about your rap ability, but this project takes your songwriting a step further, right?

Curtisy: Yeah, the shit I listen to is most definitely not what you’d expect. I get most of my inspiration from Frank Ocean and weird songwriters. Obviously I have the rap schemes and the rap thing going but I don’t really want to write like a rapper. I want to learn from all the greats where, when you leave a song, you know exactly what they’re talking about. I don’t want to say it, but there’s a delusion in rap where you can get away with saying whatever because it’s in the melody. 

I’m only just understanding what a pre-chorus and bars are, everything like that. It’s [previously] given me the freedom to say what I need to say without a lot going on, but now I’m getting into the world where I want to challenge myself.

Who’s been teaching you about this stuff?

Curtisy: Mostly just from being around more intelligent people. Hikii [who produced this project] went to school as a drummer. He’ll teach me these things on the fly and it’ll take me 40 times for me to realise what the fuck he’s talking about because I don’t have a musical bone in me body if it’s not making words rhyme. 

So it was words that attracted you first?

Curtisy: Yeah, I think so. I was always good at English in school. I put my whole career and life path down to having good English teachers –  I didn’t have good music teachers. I remember I wrote a story for a Call of Duty zombies map because I was autistically engorged in Call of Duty for a while, wearing the same t-shirt for three days just playing games. That was critically acclaimed across the whole classroom. It’s validation like that that really gets me going. 

How did you fall into rapping then?

Curtisy: Originally it was because it just felt good to understand the shit that was in my brain. I used to walk around when I was younger thinking, ‘I want to be famous’ but I never knew what it would be. Maybe it was just because I was a weird kid and looked at as a bit of a weirdo. Then, I started making music and hearing that validation from everybody that I was good made me feel a lot more confident than I used to be. I was fresh out of school and all the guys remembered me as being this non-confident weird guy, now I'm rapping about eating pussy. 

It’s interesting, because you’ve always seemed like this upbeat, chirpy guy but, listening to the lyrics on the project, there is a darkness beneath the surface.

Curtisy: I’m the type of guy who kills himself by accident, you know what I mean? Life is bad, 50-or-more per cent of the time, but if we’re not laughing then what the fuck is it for? That’s what this project is about, if I get too far thinking of the bad shit, I’ll just go in that direction. 

I remember a friend phoned me about another friend of ours dying of cancer, and we were laughing within 10 seconds of finding out this guy was dead. It’s a super Irish thing, trying to find a laugh anywhere. That’s how I cope. It’s about finding the good and the bad, The Beauty and the Beast.

If it wasn’t for rappers, I don’t know how many emotional men I would’ve heard from in my life

This also goes back to you using music to understand your emotions. I think it’s powerful that rap can facilitate that, especially for young men nowadays.

Curtisy: Yeah, I listened to Earl Sweatshirt and all that ‘conscious rap’. If it wasn’t for these rappers, I don’t know how many emotional men I would’ve heard from in my life. My dad’s not an emotional guy, my grandad’s not an emotional guy. Even that TV show, Adolescence, shows that young men don’t have a lot of emotional role models nowadays. I’m glad rap music is selling right now.

So, how did you and Hikii meet?

Curtisy: [Laughs] It’s a weird story. We met because his beat was used in this small Irish competition where you rap on a beat and, if you win, you get to use it for free. It was a tournament and I got to the semi-finals [but lost]. I remember just giving Hikii abuse. Me and my boy were like, ‘You don't know how to pick music! I’m clearly better than him!’ But, even at the time, I don't even think I had [anything special] about me. I originally had an issue with ego coming into this shit because a lot of the time I’d be rapping when I was drunk, and the ego comes with the drink. 

So, yeah, I was giving him a hard time when I was drunk at home, and then, after a while we were just like, ‘What the fuck was that about?’ Then we locked in. 

More widely, from the outside at least, it really feels like a special time in Irish music right now.

Curtisy: Yeah, it’s crazy. We’ve all been doing the same gigs for years, we’re all super close. We all like super close. We’ve all been playing these little shows and it suddenly feels like it’s all happening at the exact same time. Fontaines [D.C.] and Kneecap kind of opened the door that everybody is just falling through right now. KhakiKid’s blowing up. MOIO’s blowing up. Bricknasty sent me their unreleased music last week and it’s some of the best shit to ever come out the country.

Obviously, Fontaines and Kneecap are on the other side of the country… but still the country!

So, between this new hope for Irish music and you working through a lot of emotions on the project, how are you feeling about the future? 

Curtisy: I feel hopeful. I’ve got a lot off my chest now and I’m getting back into making music that is a lot lighter and breezier, which is always the best thing. More than [streaming] numbers, I’m getting a lot of love in my life now, a lot of texts from people saying that my music connected with them. I feel super confident. I’m in a good place. 

Curtisy’s new mixtape, Beauty in the Beast, releases May 30.