The self-proclaimed “stand-up tragedian” Isaiah Hull, whose work spans poetry and music, is part of London’s vibrant scene alongside label and collective life is beautiful. His visceral performances blend the use of language with an existential storytelling that is both intimate and straightforward. The diaristic poems-as-tracks of Hull are at the forefront of UK experimental hip hop, and he doesn’t shy away from contemporary political issues. Through his work, the voice becomes clear in its urgency, delivering glitchy inner monologues that affirm their truth from dark places.

Ahead of his performance at Rewire 2025, we caught up with Hull to ask him a few questions. In this interview, the artist offers a transparent glimpse into his personal and collaborative process, ranging from his life in London, how music might break us free, and his reflections on taking action. 

Your practice has quite a wide span, from poetry and music to video direction and stand-up. You use the term “stand-up tragedian” to describe yourself. Can you elaborate on this description? And do you still have an affinity or a connection with Greek tragedies?

Hello, thank you, yes. I appreciate the attention to word here. I use the term “stand-up tragedian” to umbrella/encompass the tonalities that I express on stage. Whether poetry, singing, rapping, DJing, or playing instruments I house it all within “stand-up tragedy” as the general attitude or genre of what I do on stage. It doesn’t mean I am an anti-comedian or I am telling dark punchlines, it means I play with the extreme dualities of laughing and crying on stage. It’s best understood by seeing it in person. To answer about Greek Tragedy: I love the stories, morals, and affectations of those myth-worlds because they still feel Biblical and often challenge the human to god relationship in ways the New Testament wouldn’t dare to. It has been a great influence of teenage Isaiah. Highschool to college, I read a lot of Greek myths and classic plays like Agammemnon, Medea, The Iliad, and even Percy Jackson before I was 17, so it definitely impacted my perspective on Western literature, but I don’t hold it as close to myself anymore as a direct factor on how I write unless I am referencing it. Surely it has informed me and I am now a compound of everything I have digested art-wise, but the whole Greek thing was like the first or second course, not the whole menu of me. I also love The Five Percent Nation, Azaelia Banks, Skillibeng, Haiti, Creole worldwide, Grime, Drill, African America, Rum Nitty, Jim Lee, Federico Fellini, Lerado Khalil, and HOOK just as much as the Greeks.

There is a diaristic, intimate component to your music; you’ve spoken a bit in the past about your relationship with solitude. How does putting music out into the world help build a sense of connection with those around you? Is that something you seek, and if not, what drives you to be so generous and open with your listeners?

Honestly, it’s hard to have songs out where you’re talking about the first time you had sex… or the last time you had sex. I don’t know if it’s helpful, or if I’d recommend choices I make on wax, for real. Something I said to Jaso recently was, I don’t know if releasing, making, sharing music does help in me feeling closer to people. It has in the past, made me feel more connected to myself, and it must start with self. I do seek connection, truth, intimacy, and comradery with the people around me, I think that’s evident in how I live and talk – in music I can say something so deeply personal about where I am or what I’m feeling or thinking but my reality may not care about that at all. One time I said, “I missed another funeral in Manny.” It didn’t teleport me to the funeral; it just showed me how far away I was from it. One time I was on the floor crying, “I’m just a baby boy!” I still had to cook and pay rent. This is what I’ve learned in 2024: on stage, I can go crazy and show my heart to a room full of strangers, half-strangers, and loved ones and leave feeling more distant, misunderstood, lonely, and fucking helpless. It needs care elsewhere? I haven’t figured it out yet, I just think art isn’t always the answer for the human, we are whole beings. I’m not thinking about listeners while I’m writing, but once it’s recorded it’s like, too late, and because my birth name is my stage name, I’m still defining the line between private me and public me. Not easy.

Could you elaborate on your relationship with improvisation? In what ways does urgency find its way into what you do – urgency to hide or to express? 

Shout out to aloisius, THE NARRATOR, and all of life is beautiful because before my lifespan with them started I was not much of an improviser to be real. I come from a real “writer” background: me, Owen O’Sapien, and Jardel Rodrigues would be in studios isolated to our notebooks or phones scribbling the craziest verses for hours while a beat was playing on loop and that was what music was for me at the time. Living with aloisius and THE NARRATOR taught me that the room is an album, the conversation is a poem. Until playing shows with life is beautiful in London, I hadn’t truly improvised like that. Again, something you need to see in person, but it’s funny because people used to come up to us as poets in Manchester and ask, “Did you guys write that? Yourselves?” because we were so young, and we would laugh. Now, they come up to us at life is beautiful shows and ask, “Did you plan that? Was it all rehearsed?” and, again, we laugh. Nowadays, I can write a poem in soundcheck and perform it live 30 minutes later, or completely freestyle my contribution to a show, which is not the school of performance I come from. I come from the “You don’t know a poem unless you know it off by heart” school, which is also valid. I’ve seen THE NARRATOR create immersive stories minutes before the audience arrives; it gave me permission to do the same in my work, the capacity stretches for what is possible in spacetime. It’s also a way of respecting the environment you are in, reacting to it, including it in your art, instead of only bringing an old version of myself into the present I can collaborate. Urgency bypasses the overthinker, the critical thought Isaiah who would evaluate, measure, and over-parent a free flow of consciousness. That’s how you have pieces like “POEMS,” “spike lee,” “the desire defect,” etc. I didn’t let myself pre-judge or get in the way of the paint. That’s why it’s so transparent and sometimes brutal or ugly in content. I am a faster writer now. It’s scary.

You often work with the producer aloisius on your music. Can you tell us a bit about this collaboration and the relationships you have with your different collaborators? 

I love aloisius. They are one of the most important people around me, a blessing to have met them and when I did. aloisius was an avi on SoundCloud to me at first, during Covid, then a brief encounter at a gig in Manchester, now, a friend I live with in London, he knows all my secrets. There is definitely a pre-aloisius Isaiah, musically, and a post-. I collaborate with THE NARRATOR, like, daily if not weekly or monthly. We released MORTAL OIL OF THE SPOILED SPIRIT (2024) this year which is one of my favourite babies on this Earth. THE NARRATOR teaches me things, facts, hard truths, long laughs, livable philosophy, and kindnesses on a personal level that continue to change my life. I am blessed to be in communion with her. It's deeper than music with these two because they deal with Isaiah Hull the human, not just how the public may know me. They are patient and graceful with me for real. Noirtier and I have a special relationship because it was too close at one point – we were once married, she had to move abroad, so it’s kind of annulled but it’s also beautiful that we can still share a long-distance working relationship. She’s produced some of my favourite songs. Zuko is a collaborator of mine who keeps me alive, whether he knows it or not – one of my biggest inspirations on this Earth and reminds me about purity. Sameway it’s deeper than music.

Your songs and poems intertwine the political with the personal, creating an elaborate tapestry of Black British experience. How does place factor into your work? And has moving to London from Manchester affected or influenced what you do?

Ahhh, this is a great question and I wish people asked me more things in this vein, wow. Kwes said to me that I absorb my environment, which is true. When I was in Manchester I was a sharp artist but not necessarily outward in my politics. I used to think that me being a black boy who made art wasn’t political until 2020. The only poem I wrote that year was “Black Is God,” which was written in response to our environment, race politics in America, police state paranoia, local violence, and familial death, etc. I also made “CRUEL BRITANNIA” around that time, this is probably where you can trace my Sankofa back to (artistically).

I was in a stifled environment and so I wrote things to break me free, break us free from the blacktraumaporn that was going on in media through using words of empowerment, visual movement, and histories of strength. I imbue a deep code in my work, signifiers they will find in the future.

I have a lot to say here. I endeavour to champion the many nuances of the Black British experience as someone who grew up in a typical working-class environment, single parent household, around church women and hood mentalities. I played Dungeons and Dragons on Broadfield Road and I was the only black kid in Chorlton house parties. I don’t have trouble admitting being scared walking home on Stamford Street, being high in my teens, and addicted in my early twenties, having a knife on me at Carnival, being on the BBC and being broke and depressed, being a vulnerable poet and being in love all in the same body (of work). Sometimes looking online it can seem like we are only one or the other. I wonder why me sharing personal experiences becomes a political thing, it’s funny.

The UK has a growing alternative scene for Black music, fashion, film, etc., now, but when I was young I still had to look towards America to relate to the shades of black that weren’t as popular over here and that’s a big reason why I make my art. To show a younger me that they have a reflection, and it’s not always flashy, or braggadocious, sometimes it’s more feminine than masculine, sometimes it’s drunk off ego, sometimes it’s forward thinking, or confused and sometimes it's lost in cycles of lust.

What was left-field in Manchester has a whole family in London. Chess, for example in South Manchester, has a few clubs, two in Chorlton which are mostly high levels and older white men. In London, you can go Brixton, Bermondsey, or Reference Point near Temple where there’s hella young black people playing Chess, like, weekly, which is mad to me. You can go Waterloo on a Friday and play outside with randoms like it’s New York. The sheer density of London compared to Manchester means things on the fringe are more likely to have history and tribe. The tempo is fast in London and this does impact my mind and my writing hand.  Also I think the more truthfully I live, the more truthfully I write, but please don’t mistake transparency for truth or word for action.

You released t he d esir e d efec t in late 2024, a really special release with an accompanying video. What’s over the horizon for Isaiah Hull? 

Watch "th e d e sir e d efe c t - [ isaiah hull x aloisius _ net video ]" by "Isaiah Hull" on https://www.youtube.com/

Thank you from me and aloisius for recognising  t he d esir e d efec t. Let me say that this piece was made in 2023 following the heartbreak of a heartbreak, which I don’t think I’m fully over, hehe (cries inside). Upon reflection it is very “marketing of a vulnerable man,” but it's true to where I was at the time and lines still ring ever true to this night I type this. I love the project sonically and am proud of the video visually.
I have never made an AV collage, but have admired the likes of BLK NEWS and other AV collagers/archivists like at the Languid Hands Exhibition I visited at 198 cal in Camberwell. Amazing and evidently inspired me to make the t he d esir e d efec t video. But yes! Horizon over yonder. 2025: I want to release a project I have with Kwes Darko, titled POCOMANIA through the label Young, film FISHSCAELS, I am going to New York with my brother, I am going to publish new literature and facilitate creative workshops with THE NARRATOR through our company PIGEON, I am going to look after myself better, invest in Jamaica, become sexier by default, write (obviously), start reading again (I haven’t read in years), cast even stronger spells (I’m a wizard), fall in love and settle down, start a family? (I’m not ready for that), help the people around me even moreso, get stronger physically, handle my responsibilities more honestly, punish self less (true), kiss God more (mwah), start locking my hair into Wicks (like a Floridian), dance in public and animate more. 2025 is about action, doing more than I speak because I’ve spoken a lot.

Isaiah Hull will be performing live at Rewire 2025. Book tickets via: rewirefestival.nl/tickets