God Knows Limerick hip-hop is thriving

Is this the best hip-hop album of 2014, midway through the year?

Since its release, at the beginning of the summer, Rusangano/ Family was acclaimed ‘underground’, until it reached the ears of Snoop Dogg, who invited its performers, God Knows and mynameisjOhn, to support him at his recent date in Dublin. However, God Knows and Mynameisjohn have localised ambitions.

“This is very much where music is in Limerick right now at the moment, or even the west of Clare, and all the people that are around us, we’re all into the same type of music. We’re all pushing towards the same direction,” says Mynameisjohn, the alias of beat junkie and producer, John Lillis.

The Clare native and vinyl record-sampling geek has since released three EPs of abstract instrumentals, which combine his love of hip-hop, electronica, psychedelic rock and folk.

“We strongly believe in what we’re doing. We’re certainly not doing it for the acclaim or the credit, or anything like that. It’s like, this is community music, is the best way to put it. It is, literally, community music. Very few outsiders may possibly understand it, until you come to the shows or until you’re in the studio, or whatever, but it very much feels like a good snapshot of where the west is at, at the moment,” he says.

Making conventional hip-hop with an MC held little interest for Lillis, until his paths crossed with God Knows Jonas, a Zimbabwean MC who has been based in Shannon since 2001. God Knows has been active on Limerick’s underground hip-hop scene for years and is a prime mover in the Random Acts of Kindness collective. The pair first met in 2008, but only after inviting God Knows to perform in Ennis did Lillis realise they could work together.

“I wanted someone that can get up on stage and actually have as much of a ruckus as possible,” he says. “And, after seeing God Knows perform, I was like, ‘That’s the dude, right there’. I was super-impressed.” The two quickly bonded.

“He was playing more bass-heavy music,” says God Knows. “He was doing more stuff that I would have been into as well, so it was sort of natural, because he would share what he was listening to and I would share what I was listening to, and they were not too different. Either way, it was like a learning experience to hear what he was into. And, also, just on a personal level, he’s a good dude as well.”

Lillis demurs at the latter suggestion, but the pair have an intuitive understanding of each other, with the producer providing the expansive musical canvas and subtle shadings to the mercurial MC’s compelling, humour-filled and often profound rhymes, which essay his experiences in Ireland. Both have been overwhelmed by the album’s reception.

“We hope, when we made it that we knew we’d made something good,” says God Knows.

“There was a moment of like, ‘Yes, we’ve made something that we love’. And I think that was the most important point — we just felt like we loved it.”

The word ‘rusangano’ is a Zimbabwean word, meaning togetherness. This feeling extends to a wider and broader coalition of musicians and MCs from the region. They hold the conviction that God Knows’ life has become the collective story.

“We would have never imagined it, but it would be something like if I had a dream...” God Knows claps his hands for emphasis, “there it is.”

godknows-mynameisjohn.bandcamp.com/