Perched in the back of a van that looks like it’s been plucked straight out of an 80s heist film, Kojaque greets me over a jaded zoom connection whilst speeding towards Leeds, the next stop on his extensive tour.

“I think everybody has to learn how to exist on stage for the most part but I really enjoy it thankfully,” he says in grateful reflection. “This tour feels a lot more fun than the previous tours, there’s a lot of theatrics that we’ve worked into the set. It’s really cool to see how you take the show on a journey.”

A few weeks ago, Irish rap’s leading maverick independently released his sophomore album, PHANTOM OF THE AFTERS, with the current tour promoting the new LP. The album was written throughout a transitional period in Kojaque’s life, which saw the born-and-raised Dubliner migrate, like many others with ambitions of creative legacy, to London.

“There’s a lot of Irish people in London, man. Most of my friends from home are here,” he offers when I enquire about his transition from the Irish to English capital. “It’s really a symptom of how bad the housing crisis is in Dublin. It’s as expensive as Dublin and it’s a little easier to find places to live here. I really enjoy it though, I’m having a great time at the minute. It’s nice to be around people who are professional artists and professional musicians. I think it spurs you on in a big way.”

The move has, however, highlighted some familiar nescience. “People can be quite ignorant in Britain as to the history between Britain and Ireland. I think it colours how I feel I’m perceived and that’s reflected in the artwork [of the new album]. Not all the time, but some interactions with British people makes you feel like you’re a country bumpkin or a simple paddy, you know?”

To understand the excellence of Kojaque’s sound, message and overarching vision, it’s important to look back to his earlier work. His ’18 EP, “Deli Daydreams”, was a magnificent effort; reflective, visceral and finely crafted, it sounded like nothing else coming out of Ireland at that time.

I ponder from where he found the incentive to create hip hop-leaning music, as I can only imagine there was a lack of Irish rappers to source inspiration from. In response he heralds the ethos of Tyler, the Creator, the vernacular individuality of The Streets, and the talent and success of fellow Irishman Rejjie Snow as influences.

“It was never a sure thing, especially when you tell people that you’re an Irish rapper,” Kojaque admits. “Even now, we got into a taxi to the show on Vicar Street [in Dublin, a fortnight or so back at time of writing], and the taxi driver asks if we’re going to the pub, and we say no, we’re playing the venue. He’s like, ‘no way, what do youse do?’ and we say we do hip-hop. And he starts laughing and saying it is random, a couple of Irish lads doing hip-hop.”

“It’s still niche, I get that,” he continues. “But I think good music will always rise to the top. It doesn’t matter what accent it comes out in or how it sounds. If it sounds new and it’s interesting, it’s well-written and well-produced, then people will gravitate toward it.”

The promise of Kojaque’s debut EP was consolidated and augmented on his sprawling debut album, Town’s Dead, a conceptual masterwork that tackles the changing social and political climate of his home city, and the ambivalence he feels towards it.

Rousing tales of late night antics, class disparity and character study, the record propelled the rapper into a new calibre of acclaim, cementing him as one of new wave rap’s most essential storytellers, a trait that runs through Kojaque’s blood. “Ireland’s never been short of storytellers and writers. They’ve got an incredible lineage of writing. So I don’t think there’s any difference with that in terms of what I do. I just write stories, man. There’s no reason why that shit can’t be successful.”

Fresh from writing his debut album, Kojaque took the plunge east to the Big Smoke, situating himself within new surroundings. When such a major change occurs, it’s natural to extenuate oneself in the immediate. “When you show up anywhere new, there’s a sense that you’ve got something to prove,” he agrees. “[London] can be a very lonely place at times. I was reflecting on what my life as a fucking musician for the past five years has been, like touring and making albums and trying to fucking scrape by.”

This factor, plus the ensuing ambition to remain in control of his identity, led in part to the thematic structuring of his second LP. “I think that’s reflected in the first half of the record; the braggadocio and the ‘here I am, fuck you all’ mentality,” he pinpoints. “As well as that, there’s just things you miss about home and shit that gets lost in translation.“

PHANTOM OF THE AFTERS is undoubtedly a step forward in vision and versatility, and also in the calibre of collaborators. Enlisting some of the UK’s most undeniable talent in the shape of trailblazing jazz collective Gotts Street Park and genre-defiant enigma Biig Piig, as well as impeccable Brazilian-Norwegian talent Charlotte Dos Santos. The most striking inclusion of all however, comes in the form of US underground hero Wiki.

“I was going to New York to play a show and the day after I had a studio session with Tony Seltzer that my manager had set up. I’d been trying to reach out to Wiki for a while but he’s an elusive character and we’d never met in real life. Somehow my manager found the contact the day before the session.”

“I found this sample and gave it to Tony Seltzer and he flipped it, made the beat, I wrote my verse and went in the booth to record it,” Kojaque continues. “I was kind of fucking nervous to be honest but I thought it sounds good. I sat down and Wiki’s smoking blunts – I’d say about six or seven blunts, and he’s on his phone and I can’t tell if he’s writing or if he’s on instagram, I can’t tell if he fucks with it or he doesn’t.”

“I’ve been a fan of this guy for fucking six or seven years, he’s an incredible artist. An hour passes by and I’m thinking shit this ain’t gonna happen, and then all of a sudden, he just stands up and gets in the booth and raps for like seven minutes – we had to cut his verse in two it was so long, that guy is prolific and for me one of the best rappers out there, period.”

“That was like a fucking surreal moment. And he fucked with it, you know?”

The marketing of the new record has been excellent – visually striking and profound in its deeper message. Much of Kojaque’s motivation to promote the album so tirelessly came following the disappearance of a safety net – label backing. “We were working with a label, they put the last record out,” he begins. “I was happy with how it went, and we were speaking to them for like six months, telling them that we had a record on the way. I was reluctant to show them anything until it was close to done. We were going to go in for a meeting with them to show them the album, and a half an hour before, they called up to say ‘listen we’re not going to do the meeting, we’re not going to take the second album on.’”

“At that stage I was fairly fucked off because I felt like I was sitting on the best music I’d ever written and they didn’t even listen before they decided it wasn’t gonna go on their label. So I think that lit a fire under my arse and I was just like – fuck them I’m gonna do this shit myself and I’m gonna make it bigger than anything I’ve ever made.”

Turning what may have become a devastating ripple effect into a positive ploy towards great success, Kojaque took control of his own musical narrative, already reaping the rewards of courage and resolution. “I don’t think I made a cent off of the last album and it streamed well and did very well on sales and shit,” he says. “This album, we used an independent distributor and it’s done well. I feel like it’s a good example for people, like you can do this shit yourself, you just have to work hard and you got to put more effort in yourself, but at the same time it’s more rewarding at the end of the day when you see a product that’s completely yours, and you’ve had a hand in making everything.”

Irish rap is flourishing in London, and Kojaque captures the zeitgeist of it more than perhaps any of his contemporaries. Uncompromising in his identity, his sound and his character, he is undoubtedly one of the most talented rappers plying their trade right now, with the increasingly mouthwatering discography to prove it.

“I’m going to take a break [after this album] because you’ve got to leave the field fallow before you can grow on it. You gotta have some experiences and live life a bit,” he concludes. “I don’t know man – I’m just here for the ride really.”